§ 48. CHARACTER AND CAUSES OF THE CRUSADES. 223
637, until Syria and Palestine passed into the hands of the sultans of Egypt three centuries later. Under Hakim, 1010. a fierce persecution broke out against the Christian residents of Palestine and the pilgrims. It was, however, of short duration and was followed by a larger stream of pilgrims than before. The favorite route was through Rome and by the sea, a dangerous avenue, as it was infested by Saracen pirates. The conversion of the Hungarians in the tenth cen tury opened up the route along the Danube. Barons, princes, bishops, monks followed one after the other, some of them leading large bodies of pious tourists. In 1035 Robert of Normandy went at the head of a great company of nobles. He found many waiting at the gates of Jerusalem, unable to pay the gold bezant demanded for admission, and paid it for them. In 1054 Luitbert, bishop of Cambray, is said to have led three thousand pilgrims. In 1064 Siegfried, archbishop of Mainz, was accompanied by the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Regensburg and twelve thousand pilgrims.1 In 1092 Eric, king of the Danes, made the long journey. A sudden check was put upon the pilgrimages by the Seljukian Turks, who conquered the Holy Land in 1076. A rude and savage tribe, they heaped, with the intense fanaticism of new converts, all manner of insults and injuries upon the Chris tians. Many were imprisoned or sold into slavery. Those who returned to Europe carried with them a tale of woe which aroused the religious feelings of all classes.
The other appeal, coming from the Greek emperors, was of less weight. 2 The Eastern empire had been fast losing its hold on its Asiatic possessions. Rom anus Diogenes was
1 Hauck, IV. 79.
2 Ekkehard, 5, 7?ec., V. 14, may exaggerate when he speaks of very fre quent letters and embassies from the Greek emperors to the West, per legationes frequentissimas et epistolas etiam a nobis visas . . . luyubriter inclamanter, etc. The letter of Alexius to Robert of Flanders, 1088, has been the subject of much inquiry. Hagenmeyer pronounces it genuine, after a most careful investigation, Epistulce, etc., 10-44.
224 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
defeated in battle with the Turks and taken prisoner, 1071. During the rule of his successor, an ernir established himself in Nicsea, the seat of the council called by the first Constantine, and extended his rule as far as the shores of the sea of Marmora. Alexius Comnenus, coming to the throne 1081, was less able to resist the advance of Islam and lost Antioch and Edessa in 1086. Thus pressed by his Asiatic foes, and seeing the very existence of his throne threatened, he applied for help to the West. He dwelt, it is true, on the desolations of Jerusalem ; but it is in accordance with his imperial char acter to surmise that he was more concerned for the defence of his own empire than for the honor of religion.
This dual appeal met a response, not only in the religious spirit of Europe, but in the warlike instincts of chivalry; and when the time came for the chief figure in Christen dom, Urban II., to lift up his voice, his words acted upon the sensitive emotions as sparks upon dry leaves. 1
Three routes were chosen by the Crusaders to reach the Holy Land. The first was the overland route by way of the Danube, Constantinople, and Asia Minor. The second, adopted by Philip and Richard in the Third Crusade, was by the Mediterranean to Acre. The route of the last two Cru sades, under Louis IX., was across the Mediterranean to Egypt, which was to be made the base of operations from which to reach Jerusalem.
§ 49. The Call to the Crusades.
" the romance
Of many colored Life that Fortune pours Round the Crusaders."
— WORDSWORTH, Ecclesiastical Sonnets.
I
The call which resulted in the first expedition for the recovery of Jerusalem was made by Pope Urban II. at the
1 Diehl, in Essays on the Crusades, 92, seems even to deny that an appeal was ever made by the Byzantine emperor Alexius for aid to the West, and