THE TURKS
[Sidenote: THE EARLY TURKS]
The Turks,[481] or “settlers,” were a branch of that strong Mongol race
which first created civilisation in Mesopotamia, and which, through the
courage and masterfulness that have always characterised this sturdy
people, ruled Western Asia at least a thousand years before Abraham, as
Akkadians and Hittites, who, though dominated by the Aryan and Semitic
races after 1500 B. C., still clung, under their “tarkhans,” to North
Syria as late as the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The Turks proper had
penetrated, or had been driven, into Central Asia at some early period,
and the home of the tribes--Huns, Uigurs, Khitai, and others--was
beyond the Oxus. They were long held at bay by the Byzantines and the
Persians, but broke out east into China, and west into Hungary as Huns
in the fifth century. Justinian was allied with the Turks, called
Khozars, on the Volga. In Turkestan they protected the silk caravans,
and about 580 A. D. Dizavul (“the orderer”) sent his ambassadors to
Justin II. of Byzantium. The civilisation of the Turks was primitive
until they came under the influence of Buddhists from India, of Jews
(who established a great trade in Central Asia), and of Chaldean
Christians who had churches at Samarkand about 900 A. D. The old Uigur
alphabet is evidence of the wide range of the race, which drove a
wedge of Yakuts into Siberia. Their letters were those of the Aramean
alphabet of Persia, and Uigur texts are found on the banks of the
Yenissei; while farther east this alphabet reached Manchuria and China.
Farther west the Khozars were converted to Judaism about 750 A. D., and
are even said to have been ruled by Jewish kings. More than one empress
of Byzantium was a Turkish princess, and the blood of the race thus ran
in the veins of the Isaurian dynasty, Constantine VI. being the son of
a Khozar mother.
After the death of El Mâmûn, the seventh of the ’Abbaside khalifs,
the Arab empire began to crumble away. In his reign Crete and Sicily
were conquered, and the power of Islâm extended to the borders of
India. But the simple creed of Muḥammad was undermined by philosophy,
scepticism, and mysticism in the East, while the Turkish mercenaries
who guarded the khalîfah at Baghdâd soon became his masters. To the
Turk the civilisation and philosophy of the age were of little value.
He understood the Ḳorân, and became a fanatical Moslem on conversion;
his influence was reactionary, and where he ruled, civilisation made
little progress. Revolts in the provinces were frequent, and the
khalifs became mere religious figure-heads. One of the first secret
sects in Islâm appeared near Merv in 767 A. D., where El Moḳann’a,
the “veiled” prophet, was joined by the Turks. A yet more formidable
society was that of El Ḳarmat of Ḳûfa, appearing in 890 A. D. The
Ḳarmathians pillaged Mekkah in 929 A. D., and their secret scepticism
with exoteric mysticism was the origin of later Druze heresies which
affected the history of Jerusalem. For two centuries the power of the
Turks continued to increase in the East till Togrul entered Baghdâd in
1055 A. D.
In the West also the employment of Turks as governors led to the
disruption of the Arab empire. Ibn Tulûn in Egypt renounced fealty
to the khalîfah in 868 A. D., and his family reigned in Syria till
905 A. D. Again in 934 A. D. Ikshîd--also a Turk--revolted, and his
successors held Egypt and Palestine till they were conquered by
Mu’ezz-li-Dîn-Allah, the fourth of the Fâṭemites of Ḳairwân and the
founder of Cairo. Thus in the last year of his reign (969 A. D.)
Jerusalem came under the rule of this Egyptian Arab khalîfah, who
claimed descent from the prophet’s daughter.
The city, and especially the Ḥaram, are described in this age by El
Muḳaddasi (“the man of the very holy city”), who was a native Moslem,
and a great admirer of his home. He wrote under El ’Azîz, the fifth
Fâṭemite, in 985 A. D. He says that the Syrians lived in fear of the
Greeks; for the new Armenian emperor of Byzantium also took advantage
of the weakness of Islâm. Nicephorus Phocas had been murdered by
Zemisces, who reigned as John I. Nicephorus had recovered Tarsus,
Antioch, and Aleppo; and Zemisces took Damascus, and marched nearly
to Baghdâd. Antioch, Cilicia, and Cyprus were retained by the Greeks
till just before the first Crusade. El Muḳaddasi, as a devout Moslem,
was much troubled by the independent manners of Jews and Christians
in Jerusalem, but bears witness to the prosperity of the town. The
city was celebrated for enormous grapes and incomparable peaches, for
excellent apples, bananas, raisins, cheeses, and cotton, almonds,
oranges, figs, dates, and nuts, “besides milk in plenty and honey
and sugar.” “In Jerusalem there are all manner of learned men and
doctors,” yet he adds, “you will not find baths more filthy than those
of the Holy City, nor in any town are provisions dearer. Learned men
[of Islâm] are few, and the Christians numerous, and the same are
unmannerly in public places.... Everywhere the Christians and the Jews
have the upper hand, and the mosque is void of either congregation
or assembly of learned men.” He refers to El Mâmûn’s work on the
Aḳṣa Mosque, and to a “colonnade supported on marble pillars lately
erected by ’Abdallah, son of Ṭahir” (that is to say, nephew of El
Mâmûn), as also to the fine dome and pitched roof. Cedar doors, covered
with bronze, had been sent by the mother of Muḳtadir-bi-Allah--the
eighteenth ’Abbaside khalîfah--shortly before the Egyptian conquest,
for he reigned (at intervals) till 932 A. D. This writer gives a
correct account of the Ḥaram buildings, and of the measurements of the
surrounding walls.
[Sidenote: EL ḤÂKIM]
It was perhaps on account of the growing power and independence of the
Christians that the successor of El ’Azîz determined to destroy the
Holy Sepulchre Church; but the excuse was that the “holy fire” was a
scandalous imposture. El Ḥakim-bi-amr-Allah was the sixth Fâṭemite
khalîfah, and acceded in Cairo in 996 A. D. There seems to be no doubt
that he was insane--driven mad probably by mysticism--and about 1005
A. D. his eccentricities disgusted all his subjects. He was finally
strangled by order of his sister in 1021 A. D., and was succeeded by
his son Ed Ḍâher-li-’azaz-Dîn-Allah, who was followed by his son El
Mostanṣir-bi-Allah; both these khalifs are connected with Jerusalem
history.
The Fâṭemites were not orthodox Moslems, but belonged to the secret
sect of the Ism’ailîyeh--one of the heresies which sprang up in Persia
under the influence of Indian mysticism; and they held the doctrine
of successive Imâms who were incarnations of God in various ages,
accompanied by successive incarnations of the Word of God in the
persons of successive prophets. The sect was closely connected with
that of the Ḳarmathians, and recognised all the Fâṭemites as Imâms or
divine incarnations, the founder of the dynasty being the eighth of
these mystic personages. Ḥâkim accordingly proclaimed himself divine,
but the strangest feature of these systems was that they were not the
real beliefs of the higher initiates. ’Abdallah, the founder of the
Ism’ailîyeh sect, was a sceptic, and while--like the leaders of many
such secret societies back to Ḥasan of Baṣrah, who was hanged by ’Abd
el Melek in 704 A. D.--he endeavoured to unite Jews, Christians, and
Moslems by teaching the doctrine of successive revelations, which
Muḥammad had proclaimed, he in reality renounced all creeds, and sought
to rule men by what he regarded as their superstitions. Like all secret
societies, these mystics failed in the end, but under the Fâṭemites
they had real power, though the Sunnî subjects of Ḥâkim were deeply
offended by his blasphemous heresies. He sought to propitiate them by
concessions to their orthodoxy, but he did not extend his toleration
to Christians, who were persecuted for several years. Finally, in 1010
A. D., as stated by Moslem and Christian accounts alike, the churches
of Modestus were burned to the ground.[482]
[Sidenote: THE DRUZES]
The memory of Ḥâkim is kept alive to the present day in Palestine among
the Druzes, who still regard him as having been an incarnation of
God, and as destined to appear again in the last days.[483] Neshtakîn
ed Derazi, from whom this remarkable sect are named, was a disciple
of Ḥamzah Ibn ’Aly, one of the Ism’ailîyeh of Khorasan. He went to
Egypt and preached the divinity of Ḥâkim, but being expelled by the
orthodox, retired to Hermon, where he gathered disciples, most of whom
seem to have been Persians. Ḥamzah himself remained in Cairo till the
murder of Ḥâkim, after which he disappeared; for the khalîfah’s son was
an orthodox Moslem. It is still the belief of some 100,000 Druzes that
Ḥâkim and Ḥamzah, as incarnations of God and of the Word, will return
in triumph from China at the end of the world; and this strange idea
shows the connection of the Druzes with the Mongol mystics of Central
Asia, and with the later school of Buddhism. Yet Ḥamzah himself and
his higher initiates had no such belief, and their secret teaching
substituted seven laws for the seven taught to the lower grade,
including “economy of truth,” mutual aid, the denial of all creeds,
separation from others, the unity of God, submission to His will, and
resignation to the appointed _ḳismah_ or “lot.”
When this strange episode in Moslem history ended in 1021 A. D., the
relations between Christians and Fâṭemites improved. Palestine had been
torn by civil wars under Ḥâkim; by riots at Damascus; and by rebellion
at Tyre, where a Greek fleet appeared to aid the oppressed Sunnîs, but
suffered defeat from the Ḳarmathian governor. The Greek emperor Romanus
III. obtained, in 1028 A. D., the consent of Ed Ḍâher, son of Ḥâkim, to
the rebuilding of the churches.[484] The news of the destruction of the
Holy Sepulchre had spread with returning pilgrims to Europe, and had
excited great indignation. Funds were no doubt easily collected for the
restoration, but it seems that the new buildings were small and poor,
as compared with those that preceded them. They were still standing in
1099 A. D., when the Crusaders arrived, and were included in the new
cathedral later. They were complete by 1048 A. D. under El Mustanṣir,
but William of Tyre[485] speaks of the Golgotha Chapel as “a very small
oratory”; and the Russian abbot Daniel (about 1106 A. D.) says, “This
was once a large church, but is now only a small one.”
From these accounts, and that of Sæwulf, we find that several additions
were made to the four churches of Modestus. The sepulchre still
stood in a rotunda, and south of this were three chapels, while to
the north was a fourth, all of which now exist, with apses to the
east. The northern one is now the Latin Chapel of Mary Magdalene.
The chapel nearest the rotunda on the south, over which the Norman
belfry--built later--still rises, was then consecrated to the Trinity,
and became the Latin baptistery. South of this was the Chapel of St.
John, and the fourth, at the extreme south end of the buildings, was
the Chapel of St. Mary, having a great fresco of the Virgin painted
outside on its west wall. East of the north side of the rotunda was an
arcade of pillars, which may have belonged to the “Paradise” of the
seventh-century church. It does not run quite parallel to the axis of
the Norman cathedral, and the later piers can still be seen added on
the line of the Norman choir. At the end of this arcade, on the east,
was the small chapel of the “Prison,” which is now mentioned for the
first time. Calvary was a separate chapel on the old site, and another
square building stood over the crypt, where the crosses were said to
have been found by Helena.
[Sidenote: THE ROTUNDA MOSAICS]
The rotunda was decorated by the munificence of the Byzantine emperor,
Romanus III. The Russian abbot Daniel says that the dome--supported on
twelve pillars and six piers--was open to the sky above, as before, and
as it continued to be in the Norman cathedral. There were galleries
round the building, and the walls of the rotunda were adorned with
mosaics, as were those of the Golgotha Chapel. The tomb itself was
surmounted by a cupola, on which the Franks afterwards placed a silver
statue of Christ, which must have been a grievance to the Greeks. The
mosaic design on the east wall of the Golgotha Chapel represented
the Crucifixion, the figures being larger than life. But the most
remarkable mosaics seem to have been those on the drum just below the
dome of the round church.[486] These were still visible as late as
1586, as described by Zuallardo. On the east was a figure of Christ as
a child, with the Virgin on one side and the Angel Gabriel on the other
(the Annunciation); on the left was Saint Helena, with six prophets
holding scrolls on either side, the thirteenth prophet (probably
Isaiah) thus facing the Christ, side by side with the archangel
Michael, next the apostles. On the right was Constantine enthroned, and
flanked by six apostles on either hand. The names were written to these
pictures in Greek and in Latin. The new buildings were completed just
before the Turks took possession of Jerusalem.
The earthquake of 1016 A. D., which caused the fall of the wooden dome
over the Rock, was no doubt regarded by Christians as the revenge of
Heaven on those who had destroyed the Holy Sepulchre. But six years
later it was restored by Ed Ḍâher, and still stands with its fine
Ḳarmathian text beginning, “In the name of God merciful and pitying:
truly he who believes in God restores God’s places of prayer.” Another
earthquake did damage to the mosque and to the walls of Jerusalem in
1034, and in 1060 the great lantern, hung from the dome and lighting
the building with five hundred lamps, fell with a crash on the
Ṣakhrah--an omen of new troubles falling on Islâm.[487]
Under El Mustanṣir, in 1047, Jerusalem was visited by the Persian
pilgrim Nâṣr-i-Khosrau, who mentions the inscription still extant,
giving actual measurements of the length and breadth of the Ḥaram
enclosure. He says that there were no buildings along the south wall
east of the Aḳṣa. In the city he found “an excellent hospital, which
is provided for by considerable sums which were given for the purpose:
great numbers of people are here served with draughts and lotions; for
there are physicians who receive a fixed stipend to attend at this
place for the sick.” This probably was Charlemagne’s Hospice. This
Moslem pilgrim also says, “From all the countries of the Greeks, and
also from other lands, the Christians and the Jews come up to Jerusalem
in great numbers, in order to visit the church and the synagogue that
is there.” The Jews prospered under Moslem rule, and the trade of the
East was now to a great extent in their hands. In the twelfth century
they deserted a Palestine under Christian rulers, but were found
farther east in great numbers, wherever the Moslems remained dominant.
[Sidenote: THE SELJUKS]
In 1077 A. D. Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Seljuk Turks, and
was pillaged by Atsiz. The history of this fateful change of masters,
which, within a generation, gave cause for the first Crusade, demands a
brief notice. The history of Persia and Baktria, since 874 A. D., had
been one of constantly reinforced Turkish aggression. The Saman family
was said to be descended from the Sassanians, but their forces were
Turkish Moslems. Bokhara, under Ism’aîl, in 895 A. D., was the capital
of a kingdom stretching from the Tien-shan Mountains to the Persian
Gulf, and from ’Irâḳ to the borders of India. It was said to be “the
seat of all the sciences.” A century later (in 976) the Samanides were
attacked by the Uigurs, and Ilik Khan entered the city in 999 A. D.
Ilik (“the prince”) ruled from China to the Caspian in Central Asia,
while the great Ghuznî dynasty was founded by Sebuktekin, who sought to
aid the Samanides. Ilik, in turn, was attacked by an outlawed general
of Bogu Khan (“the stag”), who was named Seljuk, son of Tokmak. It
would seem that this family had been converted by the Jews of Central
Asia, for among the names of early Seljuks we find those of Moses,
Jonah, Israel, and Michael. But they now appeared as devout Moslems.
Their tribesmen were still nomads when Togrul (“the slayer”) and
Tchakar (“the brilliant”), grandsons of Seljuk, fought Ilik in Bokhara
and Boghra Khan in Kashgar. On the death of the great Maḥmûd of Ghuznî
in 1030 A. D. they attacked his heir, Mas’aûd, and Tchakar--ruling in
Merv--totally defeated him nine years later. The united brothers then
conquered Kharezm, and finally defeated the Buyîds, who had ruled in
Azerbijân (or South Media) since 935 A. D., and who were all-powerful
in Baghdâd. Thus in 1055 A. D. Togrul entered the Moslem capital, and
was made “Emîr of Emîrs” as the protector of Kaîm, the twenty-sixth of
the Abbaside khalifs. The ambition of the Seljuks aimed at establishing
their empire over the whole of West Asia, and they thus at once came
into collision with Byzantium.
[Sidenote: MELEK SHAH]
The great family of the Comneni, who were to play an important part in
future history, came from Castamona, on the Euxine, but claimed Roman
descent. They were the successors of the Macedonian emperors, Isaac
Comnenos being elected by the army in 1057. On his death his brother
John declined the throne, and it was given to his friend Constantine
XI., Ducas, in 1059. The latter died eight years later, and his widow,
Eudocia--left guardian of three sons--married Romanus Diogenes, who
became emperor in 1068 A. D. Togrul had already sent an embassy to
Byzantium demanding tribute. He died in 1063 at the age of seventy,
his brother Tchakar having died five years before. In 1071 A. D.
Alp-Arslân (“the brave lion”), the next sultân, son of Tchakar, crossed
the Euphrates; and Diogenes, who had just taken Malazkerd, between
Erzerûm and Van, was obliged to retreat to Cæsarea in Cappodocia. His
army included Frank and Norman mercenaries, and the Byzantines were
deserted by these.[488] The Byzantine phalanx was broken by the Turkish
archers, and Diogenes was defeated and taken prisoner. He was well
treated by Alp-Arslân, and released on promising an annual tribute
of 60,000 aurei. But he never regained his throne at Constantinople,
and his son Michael was deposed by Nicephorus III., who usurped power
in 1078, but who was superseded by Alexius I. (Comnenos) in 1081.
Alp-Arslân was fighting in Kharezm as early as 1065, and seven years
later, while attacking Bokhara, he was stabbed by a certain Yûsef, whom
he had ordered to be crucified. He died when only forty-four years
old, and was succeeded by his famous son Melek Shah. This greatest of
the Seljuks was at first involved in war with his father-in-law at
Samarkand; after 1077 his empire extended from the Oxus to Yemen, and
he bestowed Syria and Palestine as a fief on his brother Tutush, having
organised eight great provinces under his relations. In 1075 Melek Shah
had sent Atsiz, a Kharezmian, against the Fâṭemite khalîfah. He took
Damascus, but was defeated near Cairo, and in his retreat he reached
Jerusalem, which his mutinous soldiers pillaged. Tutush besieged Aleppo
in 1078, gained Damascus by treachery, and--having conquered from
Antioch to the borders of Egypt--was humbly received by Atsiz at the
gate of the Holy City, but immediately ordered him to be beheaded. In
1083 Jerusalem was given by Tutush to his general Ortok, son of Eksek,
and on the death of the latter, in 1091, his sons Elghâzi and Sukmân
became rulers, Tutush himself being assassinated at Damascus in 1095.
The Turks thus held Jerusalem for about twenty years, during which they
greatly oppressed the native Christians and the pilgrims. About 1096,
or rather later, when the advance of the Crusaders engaged all the
Turkish forces in the north, while Radhwân and Dekak, sons of Tutush,
disputed the succession, the Fâṭemite khalîfah El Must’aîla-bi-Allah
took advantage of their weakness to seize Jerusalem and Damascus; the
Holy City was thus in possession of the Egyptians when the Crusaders
appeared before its walls in 1099 A. D., and the Seljuk princes and
generals were at discord among themselves.
The great Melek Shah had then been dead seven years, and his kingdom
split up--though his son at Baghdâd (Borḳiyaruk, “the very brilliant”)
was nominal suzerain of the eight kingdoms, or provinces, which were
practically independent. Melek Shah also fell a victim to an assassin,
and such a fate appears to have been common in Turkish history. The
sect of the Assassins (Ḥashshâshîn, or “hemp smokers”) was, indeed,
founded in this reign by Ḥasan el Ḥomeiri, who was a friend of the
celebrated poet ’Omar el Khâyyâm (“the tent maker”), and of Nizâm
el Mulk, the prime minister of Melek Shah. These three were of the
Ism’ailîyeh sect, and the scepticism of that school finds expression in
the well-known quatrains of Omar.
“There was a door to which I found no key,
There was a veil past which I could not see,
Some little talk awhile of me and Thee
There seemed--and then no more of Thee and me.”
The friendship of the three sceptics did not long endure. The vizier
found out that Ḥasan was bent on supplanting him, and the latter
was exiled to Ḳasbîn, near which was the castle of the “Eagle’s
Nest,” where--according to Marco Polo--Ḥasan’s earthly Paradise was
established, to lure the youths who vowed implicit obedience to his
commands. The first victims of the new order were Nizâm el Mulk (who
fell into disgrace), and Melek Shah himself. The Assassins organised
a huge secret society which, in the twelfth century, spread from
Khorasan to Syria, and was feared by Moslem and Christian alike. It was
suppressed in 1254 A. D. by Mengku Khan, but yet later the “Sheikh of
the Mountain” was powerful in the Lebanon. Saladin and Edward I. alike
were marked as victims, and to the present day the Nuṣeirîyeh of Syria
retain the mystic beliefs of the order founded by Ḥasan in 1090 A. D.
[Sidenote: ITALIAN TRADE]
Although we have no pilgrim diaries of the century during which the
Turks became rulers of Western Asia, we know that the Latins were
visiting the Holy City in ever-increasing numbers. Trade with Asia
was carried on by French and Italian merchants.[489] A fair was
held annually at Jerusalem on September 15, and the traders of Pisa,
Venice, Genoa, and Marseilles bought cloves, nutmeg, and mace brought
from India, pepper, ginger, and frankincense from Aden, silk from
China--whether by overland caravan or by the Chinese junks[490] which
appeared in the Red Sea during the Middle Ages--sugar from Syria, flax
from Egypt, with quicksilver, coral, and metals, glass from Tyre,
almonds, mastic, saffron, with rich stuffs and weapons, from Damascus.
The Jews paid a heavy tax to secure the monopoly as dyers, and Jewish
dyers still lived near the Tower of David in 1163 A. D., as mentioned
by Benjamin of Tudela. The sugar-cane of Tripoli is noticed by Albert
of Aix, and sugar-mills, set up by Moslems and afterwards used by the
Franks, still remain in ruins at Jericho. Jerusalem was famous for its
sugar as early, indeed, as the tenth century.
Among these traders were the merchants of Amalfi. The little town
in the Bay of Salerno, south of Naples, had a port sheltered by the
hills from the mighty _tramontana_--the north wind which blows with
almost hurricane force in winter. They kept up the ancient hospital
in Jerusalem founded by Charlemagne. They apparently built beside it
a monastery for Benedictines in 1048 A. D., and a Benedictine nunnery
was added later. These were close to the Church of St. Mary Latin,
for the hospice was intended for Latin pilgrims. The patron saint
was originally the Egyptian patriarch of the seventh century, St.
John Eleemon, but afterwards St. John Baptist when the order of the
Hospitallers grew out of the Benedictines as Knights of St. John.
They retained the black Benedictine robe, with a white cross. Geraud
of Amalfi, the first master of the order, was found presiding at the
hospice when the Crusaders arrived.[491] Pope Paschal II. took this
institution under his protection on February 15, 1113 A. D., and it is
described as “the Hospice of Geraud in the city of Jerusalem, near the
Church of St. John Baptist, instituted with all the properties which do
or shall belong to the said hospice this side or beyond the sea.” It
remained independent of the Latin patriarch down to 1120 A. D., and the
order was always specially under the Popes.[492]
It was perhaps on account of the increased facilities for transit,
afforded by the Italian fleets, that the numbers of the Latin pilgrims
began now to increase so greatly. Europe was still plunged in Gothic
ignorance, but the traders brought home tales which fired the
imagination of artistic peoples such as the Provençals, the Normans,
and the Kelts were by nature. They heard, as they sat in their grim
castles frowning down on some walled village, of great cities in the
East full of treasure, and brightened with glorious works of art. They
contrasted the splendours of the sunny South, in Italy and in Syria,
with the gloom of the North. They learned from the palmer, or the
Jewish trader, wonderful legends of Indian and Arab origin, and heard
of sacred places and miraculous relics. Palestine was a fairy-land to
them; Damascus was a city to sack. They learned also that Christians in
the East were persecuted, and trade obstructed, by savage Tartars who
demanded endless taxes, who danced on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre,
and pulled the patriarch by the beard. Their wrath was roused, and
they desired to aid the emperor of Byzantium, who was appealing to them
for help.
[Sidenote: POPE HILDEBRAND]
The Church also was recovering from the utter degradation into which
it had fallen after the time of Charlemagne. Hildebrand appeared as a
great Pope in 1073 A. D.--an Italian probably of Gothic origin, who
reformed the Latin episcopacy, and freed himself, by aid of Normans,
from the German emperor (whom he brought to his knees at Canossa), yet
who died in exile at Salerno in 1085 A. D. The dreamers of dreams are
the makers of history. Hildebrand dreamed of an united feudal Europe,
under the Pope of Rome as its head. He saw the danger to Christendom of
the great Moslem empire under Melek Shah which threatened Byzantium.
He was the first to urge on princes the necessity of union, and of a
“general passage” beyond the sea for the support of the Greek empire,
and for the rescue of the holy places. Appeal had been made to Pope
Sylvester II. as early as 1000 A. D., and he had written a letter[493]
in favour of the Eastern Christians, but nothing could then be done.
The dream of Hildebrand was fulfilled within a generation.
The Latin nations were still half savage, and the masses lived in
fear of Hell, of the Last Day, and of the Pope--fears which were
alike inculcated by their priests. It was expected that the world
would come to an end in the year 1000 after the Nativity,[494] and
wills and legal documents of the tenth century begin with the words
“Appropinquante etenim mundi termino, et ruinis crescentibus jam certa
signa manifestantur, pertimescens tremendi judicii diem.” Though the
year passed without fulfilment of these fears, the idea of immediate
ending of earthly history continued to be a real motive of action even
at the close of the twelfth century, when Geoffrey de Vinsauf says that
the world “waxes old.” The pilgrim received remission of his sins at
the holy places, and if he died at Jerusalem he was ready to appear in
the “Valley of Decision” on the day of doom.
Jerusalem, which then measured nearly a third of a square mile in area,
seems a small town to us, but to the pilgrims from the West it must
have appeared large and magnificent, though Damascus and Constantinople
were much larger. In the middle of the twelfth century Winchester, as
the capital of England, under king Stephen, was only a third of the
size of the Holy City; and though the beauties of the Ḥaram buildings
could not be seen, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with its mosaics,
its lamps of gold and silver, and many other gifts of princes, must
have impressed the wild Normans with a sense of Oriental wealth.
The Norsemen who accompanied Sigurd, soon after Jerusalem was taken
by Godfrey, scorned to show their astonishment at the civilisation
of Asia, yet even the smaller town of Sidon was a prize, as Halldor
Skualldre sang.
“He who for wolves provides a feast
Seized on the city of the East,
The heathen’s nest; and honour drew,
And gold for gifts, from those he slew.”
[Sidenote: LATIN PILGRIMS]
After the completion of the new churches, in 1048 A. D., crowds of
pilgrims came rejoicing to see them, as Roderick Glaber (“the bald”)
relates: “And then from all the world an incredible multitude of men
entered Jerusalem, with exultation, bringing gifts for the restoration
of the house of God.” Yet earlier, in 1033, he says, “An innumerable
multitude began to flow together to the Saviour’s tomb at Jerusalem,
whom none might hope to number. First the class of the lower people,
then the middle class, afterwards the greatest--kings, counts, and
nobles--lastly, which had never happened before, many women, noble and
poor, arrived there. Many, indeed, desired at heart to die before they
went home.”
Among these pilgrims of high rank was Fulk the Black, Count of Anjou,
ancestor of a future king of Jerusalem, who came to expiate many deeds
of violence. When he returned he built a church at Loche in imitation
of the Sepulchre at Jerusalem. He made two more pilgrimages to the
Holy City, and died in 1040 at Metz, returning from the last. Robert
of Normandy, father of the Conqueror, also went by the land route to
Palestine in 1035 A. D. In Asia Minor he met a Norman pilgrim returning
home. Robert was sick, and was carried in a litter by Saracens. He
bade his subject tell his barons “that you saw me where I was being
borne by devils to Paradise.” Before the gate of Jerusalem he found a
crowd of poor pilgrims, denied admission by the Egyptian guard because
they could not pay the tax of one aureus each. He paid the gold bezant
demanded for every one of them. This munificence of the Norman was
well appreciated by the Moslem governor, who sent back the money which
Robert distributed among the poor. The duke died on his return journey
at Nicæa before reaching Byzantium.
The conversion of the Hungarian Mongols to Latin Christianity, in the
end of the tenth century, opened a new safe route to Constantinople.
Richard, abbot of St. Vitou in Normandy, led a band of seven hundred
pilgrims to Jerusalem; and in 1054 the bishop of Cambray was attended
by a great host, who were called “the army of the Lord,” but they only
got to Laodicæa in Syria, and then returned home. Four other German
bishops were accompanied by seven thousand pilgrims, and Ingulphus,
the secretary of William the Conqueror, was among the leaders. They
are said to have been served on vessels of gold and silver, and the
tents of the bishops were hung with costly tapestry. They were attacked
by an Arab sheikh at Ramleh, and were for a time in danger of their
lives. But bishop Gunther of Bamburg felled the insolent brigand
with one blow, and he was seized and bound. The Egyptian governor
hurried to their assistance, and declared the sheikh to be an outlaw
of whom the settled population were afraid. The bishops presented
the governor with 500 gold bezants (or about £250), and were safely
escorted to Jerusalem. They saw the holy places, and Ingulphus went
back by sea to Italy. Bishop Gunther died in Hungary, and only two
thousand out of seven thousand ever saw their homes again. Of his own
comrades Ingulphus says “that they sallied from Normandy thirty stout
and well-appointed horsemen, but that they repassed the Alps twenty
wretched palmers, with staff in hand and wallet on back.”
Such were the pilgrims who explored the way for the Crusaders half a
century before Peter the Hermit. Whether they continued to come in
equal numbers after the Turks took Jerusalem in 1077 A. D. is not
known, but, as we shall now see, the dangers and difficulties of
pilgrimage then became far greater, and a cry of wrath and misery
echoed from the Holy City over all the Latin world.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER XII
[481] See Gibbon, ch. lii.; Vámbéry, “Hist. of Bokhara,” 2nd edit.
1873; Yule, “Marco Polo,” 1871, p. 172; Carmoly, “Itinéraires de la
Terre Sainte,” 1847, “Des Khozars au X^e Siècle,” pp. 1–104. For the
name “Turk,” see Vámbéry, “Turko-Tatarischen Sprachen,” 1878, pp. 184,
185.
[482] Will. of Tyre, i. 4, 5; Makrizi, etc.; see Guy le Strange, “Pal.
under the Moslems,” p. 204.
[483] See Churchill, “Mt. Lebanon,” 1853, with an account of Druze
beliefs abstracted from Silvestre de Sacy, “Exposé de la Religion des
Druzes.”
[484] Will. of Tyre, i. 6; Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” 1838, pp. 394–6;
“Chron. Adhemari.”
[485] viii. 3.
[486] Abbot Daniel (_c._ 1106 A. D.); John of Würzburg (_c._ 1160
A. D.); Theodorich (_c._ 1172 A. D.).
[487] Besant and Palmer, “Jerusalem,” p. 108; Guy le Strange, “Pal.
under the Moslems,” p. 130. Another Ḳarmathian text, forbidding the
“protected” (Jews and Christians) to enter a mosque in the city,
probably belongs to this period, but it is not clear under which of the
Fâṭemites it was set up. _Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly_, Oct. 1897, p.
302, April 1898, p. 86.
[488] El Makîn says that Alp-Arslân had 40,000 horsemen. The Byzantines
numbered 100,000, including Phrygians, Cappadocians, Macedonians,
Bulgarians, Uzi of Moldavia (who mutinied, and who were Turks), Franks,
and Normans, commanded by Ursel of Baliol, ancestor of the Scottish
king John Baliol; the family came to Durham from Normandy.
[489] “Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions,” de Guignes, “Sur
l’état du commerce des François dans le Levant avant les Croisades,”
quoted in Besant and Palmer’s “Jerusalem,” 1871, p. 127.
[490] Ibn Batuta.
[491] Foucher of Chartres, “Hic fuit repertus ibidem quando Godefridus
... ceperunt eandem.” He died on September 3, 1120 A. D. The
Xenodochium of Geraud (“Regesta,” No. 71) was “prope ecclesiam S.
Johannis Baptistæ.” In 1118 A. D. (“Regesta,” No. 86) Roger of Antioch
gave houses in Jerusalem and three villages to the hospital: “sitam
quam Hierosolymis moratus Guiraldo dederat.”
[492] See Röhricht, “Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani,” 1893, Nos. 71, 86;
Albert of Aix, vi. 25; William of Tyre, xviii. 4, 5.
[493] “Acta Sanctorum,” iv. p. 39; see Robinson, “Bib. Res.,” 1838, i.
p. 394.
[494] Roderick Glaber, iii. 7, iv. 6; “Bib. Res.,” i. pp. 396–400;
Besant and Palmer, “Jerusalem,” 1871, p. 133; Geof. de Vinsauf, “Itin.
Ric.,” II. v.