8. Jerusalem remained in possession of the Arabians, and was occasionally visited by Christian pilgrims from Europe till towards the year 1000, when a general belief that the second coming of the Saviour vras near at hand drew pilgrims in unwonted crowds to tlie Holy Land, and created an impulse for pilgrimages thither which (•cased not to act after the first exciting cause had been I'' irgotten. The Moslem government, in order to derive -MHie profit from this enthusiasm, imposed the tribute of a piece of gold as the price of entrance into the holy city. The sight, by such large numbers, of the holy place in the hands of infidels, the exaction of tribute, and the insults to which the pilgrims, often of the high- est rank, were exposed from the Moslem rabble, excited an extraordinary ferment in Europe, and led to those remarkable exjieditions for recovering the H<jh' Sepul- chre from the ^Mohammedans which, under tlie name of the Crusades, Avill alwaj-s fill a most important and cu- rious chapter in the history of the world. (See Gib- bon's History of Ike Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- jnt-e.) See Crusades.
The dominion over Palestine had passed in A.D. 960 from the khaliis of Bagdad to the Fatimite khalifs of Egypt, and these in their turn were dispossessed in A.D. 1073 by the Turkomans, who had usurped the powers of the Eastern khalifat. The severities exercised by these more fierce and uncivilized jNIoslems upon both the na- tive Christians and the European pilgrims supplied the immediate impulse to the first Eastern expedition. But by the time the Crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon, appeared before Jerusalem, on the 17th of June, 1099, the Egyptian khalifs had recovered possession of Pales- tine, and driven the Turkomans beyond the Euphrates.
After a siege of forty days, the holy city was taken by storm on the loth day of July, and a dreadful mas- sacre of the Moslem inhabitants followed, without dis- tinction of age or sex. As soon as order was restored, and the city cleared of the dead, a regular government was estabUshed by the election of Godfrey as king of Jerusalem. One of the first cares of the new monarch was to dedicate anew to the Lord the place where his presence had once abode, and the Mosque of Omar be-
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cimc a Christian cathedral, wliich the historians of the iredtsL,uish as " the Temple of the Lord (W^^^ nomini). The Christians l.ept possession o Jmsa en cio-htv-eight years. See below, J krcs.vlem, Knu.h rs OK buri^^s this long period they appear to have erect ed several churches and many convents^. Ot the latter, fL if an V, traces remain -, and of the former save one or two ruins, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which Jhev rebuilt is the only memorial that attests tu. ex- istence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. In AD 1187 the holy citv was wrested from the hands of the ChrUians b/ the 'sultan Saladin, and the onler of thn^s was then reversed. The cross was removed .Mth gno minv from the sacred dome, the holy Pl»^^« ^"^ l^^^' tiedVrom Christian stain with rose-water hroug from Damascus, and the caU to prayer by the muezzin once
more sounded over the city. From that time to the present day the holv city has remained, with slight in- terruption, in the hands of the Moslems. On the threat- ened siege by Kichard of England in 1192, Sala.hn took great pains in strengthening its defences. New waUs and bulwarks were erected, and deep trenches cut, and in six months the town was stronger than it ever had been, and the works had the iirmness and solidity ot a rock. But in A.D. 1210, the sultan Mclek el-Moaddm of Damascus, who then had possession of Jerusalem, or- dered aU the walls and towers to be demolished, except the citadel and the inclosure of the mosciue, lest the Franks should again become masters of the city and find it a place of strength. In this defenceless state Je- rusalem continued till it was delivered over to the Chris- tians in consequence of a treaty with the emperor Ircd- erick II, in A.D. 1229, with the understanding that the walls should not be rebuilt. Yet ten years later (A.D. l-':!9) the barons and knights of Jerusalem began to build the walls anew, and to erect a strong fortress on the west of the city. But the works were interrupted by the emir Dayid"of Kerek, who seized the city, stran- gled the Christian inhabitants, and cast down the new- ly erected walls and fortress. Four years alter, howev- er (A.D. 1243), Jerusalem was again made over to the Christians without any restriction, and the works ap- pear to have been restored and completed ; for they arc mentioned as existing when the city was stormed by the wild Kharismian hordes in the foUowmg year, short- ly after which the city reverted for the last tune into the hands of its Jlohammedan masters, who have sub- stantially kept it to the present day, aUhough in 12/7 Jerusalem was nominaUy annexed to the kingdom ot i Sicily. , ,