Ten Great Events in History | Page 7

memorable events in the life of Christ
and his apostles was marked by a chapel or house of prayer. Jerusalem
and the Holy Land became the resort of numerous bodies of clergy,
who resided in the churches and monasteries which the piety of the
wealthy had founded for them.

2. At the end of the fourth century, the gigantic Roman Empire was
broken up into two, the Eastern, the capital of which was
Constantinople, and the Western, the capital of which was Rome. It
was to the former of these that Syria and Palestine were attached.
Before the end of the fifth century the Western Empire had been
destroyed by the eruption of the German races, and the beginnings of a
new European civilization were rising from its ruins. Meanwhile, the
Eastern remained entire, till about the year 630, when the Arabs,
burning with the spirit of conquest infused into them by the religion of
Mohammed, poured into its provinces. Egypt, Syria, and Palestine were
annexed as dependencies to the great Arabic Empire of the caliphs. The
religion of Mohammed became dominant in the Holy Land, the temples
and chapels were converted into mosques.
3. Numbers of pilgrims still continued each year to visit Palestine. In
return for a certain tribute, the earlier caliphs permitted the Christians
of Jerusalem to have a patriarch, and to carry on their own form of
worship. Of all the caliphs, the celebrated Haroun al-Rashid, best
known to us in the stories of the "Arabian Nights," was the most
tolerant, and under him the Christians enjoyed perfect peace.
4. Great cruelties were practised by the Fatimite caliphs, who
conquered Syria about the year 980. The pilgrims were robbed, beaten,
and sometimes slain on their journey, the Christian residents oppressed
by heavy impositions, and their feelings outraged by insults against
their religion. These sufferings were slight, however, compared with
those which they endured after the invasion and conquest of Palestine
by the Turkish hordes in 1065. But recently converted to Moslemism,
and therefore more rude and fanatical than the other Mohammedans,
these Turks wreaked their vengeance on all alike--Christians, Jews, and
even the native Mohammedans.
5. The news of the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks produced a deep
sensation over the whole of Christendom, as well among the Latin
Christians as among the Greek Christians, the name given to the
population of what remained of the old Byzantine Empire. The latter
had reason to dread that, if the Turks were not checked, Constantinople,

their capital, would soon share the same fate as Jerusalem. Accordingly,
about the year 1073, the Greek Emperor, Manuel VII, sent to supplicate
the assistance of the great Pope Gregory VII against the Turks. Till now
there had prevailed a spirit of antagonism between the Greek and Latin
churches, the former refusing to yield obedience to the pope of the
West as the universal head of the Church. Gregory, therefore, eagerly
received the application of the Greek Emperor, seeing the promise of
the final subjection of the Greek to the Latin Church. He resolved to
give the enterprise his countenance, and to march himself at the head of
an army to rescue the Holy Sepulchre.
6. Gregory was prevented from ever carrying out his design, and the
idea of a crusade gradually died away. Meanwhile, the Turks extended
their victories at the expense of the Greek Empire. Before the accession
of the celebrated Alexius Comnenus to the throne in 1081, the whole of
Asia Minor was in the possession of the Turks, and broken up into a
number of kingdoms, the sultans of which soon began to quarrel among
themselves. The disturbed state of Asia Minor greatly increased the
sufferings of the pilgrims; not one out of three returned to recount the
story of his hardships.
7. Among those who undertook the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, when the
dangers attending it were the greatest, was a native of Amiens in France,
named Peter, who had become a monk and an ascetic, being called
from his solitary manner of life, Peter the Hermit. He arrived safely at
Jerusalem, and visited all the scenes sacred to a Christian's eyes. As he
walked along the streets, looking at this and that holy spot, insolent and
contemptuous Turks looked on and mocked him, and his spirit grew
bitter within him, and his hand clutched itself convulsively as if longing
for a sword.
8. Burning with a sense of injuries sustained by the Christians, and the
desecration of the sacred places, he sought the counsel of Simeon, the
Greek patriarch of Jerusalem. In reply to Peter's questions, he explained
that nothing was to be expected from the Greek Empire in behalf of the
Holy Land, the court of Constantinople was so dissolute and corrupt,
and that the only hope was that