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force in aid of the pilgrims; at whose approach the Arabs fled. The prisoners were delivered over to the governor; and he recognised with pleasure in the Sheikh a rebel chief, who had for many years given great trouble to the Egyptian Khalif, and several times defeated the forces sent against him. The governor now caused the pilgrims to be escorted in safety to Jerusalem, and back again to the sea; receiving for his civility and aid a present of five hundred gold Byzants. But of the original host of seven thousand pilgrims, only two thousand lived to return to their native land; and the bishop Günther also died on the way back in Hungary. Ingulphus and others returned through Italy; and he observes of his own companions, "that they sallied from Normandy, thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand, and the wallet at their backs."

But another revolution was now impending over Syria, still more disastrous in its immediate consequences to the Christians of the East; and destined to kindle up at last those Holy Wars, which for nearly two centuries deluged the soil of Palestine with the choicest blood of Europe.

Ever since the conquest of Syria by the Fatimite Khalifs of Egypt in A. D. 969, the dynasty of the Abassides had still continued nominally to reign at Bagdad, in the possession of a mere shadow of honour and power; while their chief commanders, under the title of Emîr el-Omara, ruled with unlimited authority both the Khalif and his realms. This high post had now been held for a century by the race of the Bu

1) This is Gibbon's pompous paraphrase of the simpler language of Ingulphus: "Et tandem de triginta equitibus, qui de Northman

nia pingues exivimus, vix viginti pauperes peregrini et omnes pedites macie multi attenuati reversi sumas." Ingulph. 1. c.

ides,1 when the Turkish or Turkman leader Togrul Beg, of the family of Seljûk, came with a large army from Khorasan to Bagdad, and extended his conquests to the Euphrates. This conqueror drove the Buides from the post of Emîr el-Omara, which he took upon himself; deprived the Khalif of even the remaining shadow of temporal power; and reigned as Sultan over all the lands of the Khalifate. His nephew, Alp Arslan, penetrated into Asia Minor as far as to Iconium; took prisoner in battle the Greek emperor Romanus Diogenes in A. D. 1071; and carried consternation to the gates of Constantinople. He was succeeded in A. D. 1072 by his son Melek Shah; who, following out the rude feudal system of the Turkmans, bestowed on his kinsman Suleimân, Asia Minor and the adjacent countries west of the Euphrates, which he was to conquer and hold as a fief under the Sultan of Bagdad. Suleimân was successful in his operations, and established in A. D. 1073 the Seljûk kingdom and dynasty of Rûm, extending from the Euphrates to the shores of the Bosphorus, and having its metropolis first at Nicea, and afterwards at Iconium.1

While Suleiman was thus establishing his dominion in Asia Minor, Melek Shah despatched another of his generals, Atsiz the Kharismian, to make war upon the Syrian possessions of the Egyptian Khalif. He took the city of Damascus after a long siege in A. D. 1075; the inhabitants having been compelled to surrender by famine. During the two following years he subdued the greater part of Syria, marched against Egypt, and penetrated almost to Cairo. The Khalif trembled and fled by night; but his people rallied, defeated the invader, and drove him back upon Syria. Atsiz retired to Damascus, taking the route by Ramleh

1) Deguignes Hist. des Huns, 2) Deguignes, 1. c. lib. XI. T. I. i. p. 406. II. i. pp. 168, 170.

and Jerusalem, which he pillaged, A. D. 1077.1 In consequence of this defeat, Melek Shah now bestowed the Syrian provinces as a fief upon his brother Tutush; who in A. D. 1078 laid siege to Aleppo; got possession of Damascus by treachery; and carrying his victorious arms from Antioch to the borders of Egypt, established the Seljûk kingdom of Syria or Aleppo; which he held under the nominal sovereignty of his brother, the Sultan of Bagdad.2

Following out the same system of feudal reward, these Turkman leaders bestowed also upon their officers the hereditary command, or rather the property, of particular cities and districts, as a recompense for the services of themselves and their followers. In this way, in A. D. 1083 or 1084, the Holy City was made over by Tutush to his general Ortok, the chief of a Turkman horde serving under his banner. This chieftain continued to hold the city as Emîr of Jerusalem until his death in A. D. 1091; when it passed into the hands of his two sons, Ilghâzy and Sukmân.3

The permanent approach of the savage Turkman hordes to the shores of the Bosphorus, spread dismay not only among the Christians of the Constantinopolitan empire, but also throughout Europe. The Greek emperor wrote letters to the western Christians, imploring their aid against the terrific progress of the Turks. The impetuous Hildebrand, as pope Gregory

1) Deguignes Tom. II. p. 216.William of Tyre affirms that Jerusalem was subject to the Turks for thirty-eight years; which would give A. D. 1060 or 1061, for the time of their first conquest; lib. I. 6. VII. 19. This must at any rate be an error; for in the year 1065, when the pilgrim-bishops visited the Holy City, it was still under the Egyptian Khalif.

2) Deguignes, lib. XII.-A summary and chronology of all the

four or five Seljûk dynasties, is given by Deguignes, Tom. I. i. p. 241, seq.

3) Abulfedae Annales, ed. Adler, Tom. III. pp. 260, 280; comp. p. 253. Deguignes Hist. des Huns, Tom. II. ii. p. 134.

4) One of these letters is preserved by Guibert, "verbis tamen vestita meis," as he frankly says; Guibert Abbot. Hist. Hieros. in Gesta Dei per Francos, pp. 475,

476.

VII, for a time took up the cause of his eastern brethren; and in A. D. 1074 wrote letters exhorting the western church in general, and also individuals, to take arms in behalf of the emperor and the churches of the East. He even held out the hope, that he himself would bear them company in this holy expedition.' But his attention was soon diverted from the dangers of the East, and absorbed in his own struggles for supremacy over the monarchs of the West. His successor, Victor III, was actuated by similar views; but as the unbelievers of Africa at this time often ravaged the Italian coasts, he first turned the vengeance of the Christians against them. In A. D. 1086 he caused a crusade to be preached in Italy against the African Muslims, promising to all who should take part in it the full absolution of their sins. A Christian host was collected and proceeded to Africa, under the standard of St. Peter; where it desolated the chief cities of the Arabs, and is said to have destroyed a hundred thousand of the inhabitants. This was a prelude worthy of the approaching crusades in the Holy Land.2

The dominion of the Turkmans in Palestine, these fierce sons of the eastern deserts, could only render the condition of the Christians and pilgrims still more deplorable. These wild hordes knew no law and no right, save that of the sword; they neither knew nor cared for ancient usage nor stipulation; and in their rage for gain and their rude fanatic zeal for the religion of the false prophet, they perpetrated every species of cruelty and outrage against the followers of the cross. In Jerusalem especially, under the dominion of Ortok and his sons, the native Christians and

1) The general letter is found in Gregor. Epist. lib. II. 37; and a particular one to Count William of Burgundy, ibid. I. 46. Mansi Collect. Concil. Tom. XX.

2) Chronicon Casinum auct. Leone Ostiensi, in Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, Tom. IV. p. 480.

pilgrims were overwhelmed with insult and driven to extremity. Troops of these savage oppressors often forced their way into the churches during divine service; terrified the worshippers by their wild noise and fury; mounted upon the altars; overturned the sacred cups; trod under foot the consecrated vessels; broke in pieces the marble ornaments; maltreated the clergy with contumely and blows; seized the patriarch himself by the hair and beard, and dragged him from his seat headlong to the ground; and several times threw him into prison, in order that the Christians might redeem him with large sums of money.'

It might be supposed that this state of things, when known in Europe, would have served to allay the rage for pilgrimage, and have deterred the Christians of the West from exposing themselves to dangers and contumelies hitherto unparalleled. But the custom had become too firmly established, and pilgrimages during this century had been too frequent, to be at once broken off. Multitudes of pilgrims still flocked to the Holy City; and as the Turkmans were now more rigorous in exacting the price of entrance, than the governors of the Egyptian Khalifs formerly had been, thousands of pilgrims who had consumed or lost their all upon the way, were compelled to lie waiting before the gates. Here many of them died, worn out with famine and nakedness. Whether living or dead, the pilgrims were now an intolerable burden to the inhabitants. If admitted into the city, they were the source of continual dread to the Christians, lest by their incautious behaviour they should excite the fury of their oppressors. So great also were their numbers and penury, that the convents and hospitals were unable to receive more than a small part of them; and

1) Will. Tyr. I. 10. Comp. also ibid. I. 8.
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