ditary command of the provinces of the Roman empire, from Arzeroum to Constantinople, and the unknown regions of the West. (51) Accompanied by his four brothers, he passed the Euphrates: the Turkish camp was soon seated in the neighbourhood of Kutaieh in Phrygia; and his flying cavalry laid waste the country as far as the Hellespont and the Black Sea. Since the decline of the empire, the peninsula of Asia Minor had been exposed to the transient, though destructive, inroads of the Persians and Saracens: but the fruits of a lasting conquest were reserved for the Turkish sultan; and his arms were introduced by the Greeks, who aspired to reign on the ruins of their country. Since the captivity of Romanus, six years the feeble son of Eudocia had trembled under the weight of the Imperial crown, till the provinces of the East and West were lost in the same month by a double rebellion: of either chief Nicephorus was the common name; but the surnames of Bryennius and Botoniates distinguished the European and Asiatic candidates. Their reasons, or rather their promises, were weighed in the divan; and, after some hesitation, Soliman declared himself in favour of Botoniates, opened a free passage to his troops in their march from Antioch to Nice, and joined the banner of the crescent to that of the cross. After his ally had ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sultan was hospitably entertained in the suburb of Chrysopolis or Scutari; and a body of two thousand Turks was transported into Europe, to whose dexterity and courage the new emperor was indebted for the defeat and captivity of his rival Bryennius. But the conquest of Europe was dearly purchased by the sacrifice of Asia: Constantinople was deprived of the obedience and revenue of the provinces beyond the Bosphorus and Hellespont; and the regular progress of the Turks, who fortified the passes of the rivers and mountains, left not a hope of their retreat or expulsion. Another candidate implored the aid of the sultan: Melissenus, in his purple robe and red buskins, attended the motions of the Turkish camp; and the desponding cities were tempted by the summons of a Roman prince, who immediately surrendered them into the hands of the Barbarians. These acquisitions were confirmed by a treaty of peace with the emperor Alexius; his fear of Robert compelled him to seek the friendship of Soliman; and it was not till after the sultan's death that he extended as far as Nicomedia, about sixty miles from Constantinople, the Eastern boundary of the Roman world. Trebizond alone, defended on either side by the sea and mountains, preserved at the extremity of the Euxine the ancient character of a Greek colony, and the future destiny of a Christian empire.

Since the first conquests of the caliphs, the establishment of the Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor was the most deplorable loss which the church and empire had sustained. By the propagation of the Moslem faith, Soliman deserved the name of Gazi, a holy champion; and his new kingdom of the Romans, or of Roum, was added to the tables of oriental geography. It is described as extending from the Euphrates to Constantinople, from the Black Sea to the confines of Syria; pregnant with mines of silver and iron, of alum and copper, fruitful in corn and wine, and productive of cattle and excellent horses.(52) The wealth of Lydia, the arts of the Greeks, the splendour of the Agustine age, existed only in books and ruins, which were equally obscure in the eyes of the Scythian conquerors. Yet, in the present decay, Anatolia still contains some wealthy and populous cities; and under the Byzantine empire, they were far more flourishing in numbers, size, and opulence. By the choice of the sultan, Nice, the metropolis of Bithynia, was preferred for his palace and fortress: the seat of the Seljukian dynasty of Roum was planted one hundred miles from Constantinople; and the divinity of Christ was denied and derided in the same temple in which it had been

(51) On the conquest of Asia Minor, M. de Guignes has derived no assistance from the Turkish or Arabian writers, who produce a naked list of the Seljukides of Roum. The Greeks are unwilling to expose their shame, and we must extort some hints from Scylitzes (p. 860. 863), Nicephorus Bryennius (p. 88. 91, 92, &c. 103, 104,) and Anne Comnena. (Alexiad. p. 91, 92, &c. 168, &c.)

1

(52) Such is the description of Roum, by Haiton the Armenian, whose Tartar history may be found in the collections of Ramusio and Bergeron. (See Abulfeda, Geograph. climat. xvii. p. 301–305).

pronounced by the first general synod of the Catholics. The unity of God, and the mission of Mahomet, were preached in the mosques; the Arabian learning was taught in the schools; the Cadis judged according to the law of the Koran; the Turkish manners and language prevailed in the cities; and Turkman camps wère scattered over the plains and mountains of Anatolia. On the hard conditions of tribute and servitude, the Greek Christians might enjoy the exercise of their religion; but their most holy churches were profaned; their priests and bishops were insulted;(53) they were compelled to suffer the triumphs of the Pagans, and the apostacy of their brethren; many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters. (54) After the loss of Asia, Antioch still maintained her primitive allegiance to Christ and Cesar; but the solitary province was separated from all Roman aid, and surrounded on all sides by the Mahometan powers. The despair of Philaretus the governor prepared the sacrifice of his religion and loyalty, had not his guilt been prevented by his son, who hastened to the Nicene palace, and offered to deliver this valuable prize into the hands of Soliman. The ambitious sultan mounted on horseback, and in twelve nights (for he reposed in the day) performed a march of six hundred miles. Antioch was oppressed by the speed and secrecy of his enterprise; and the dependant cities, as far as Laodicea and the confines of Aleppo,(55) obeyed the example of the metropolis. From Laodicea to the Thracian Bosphorus, or arm of St. George, the conquests and reign of Soliman extended thirty days' journey in length, and in breadth about ten or fifteen, between the rocks of Lycia and the Black Sea.(56) The Turkish ignorance of navigation protected, for a while, the inglorious safety of the emperor; but no sooner had a fleet of two hundred ships been constructed by the hands of the captive Greeks than Alexius trembled behind the walls of his capital. His plaintive epistles were dispersed over Europe, to excite the compassion of the Latins, and to paint the danger, the weakness, and the riches, of the city of Constantine.(57)

[A. D. 638-1099.] But the most interesting conquest of the Seljukian Turks, was that of Jerusalem,(58) which soon became the theatre of nations. In their capitulation with Omar, the inhabitants had stipulated the assurance of their religion and property; but the articles were interpreted by a master against whom it was dangerous to dispute; and in the four hundred years of the reign of the caliphs, the political climate of Jerusalem was exposed to the vicissitudes of storms and sunshine.(59) By the increase of proselytes and population, the Mahometans might excuse their usurpation of three-fourths of the city: but a peculiar quarter was reserved for the patriarch with his

(53) Decit eos quendam abusione Sodomitica intervertisse episcopum (Guibert. Abbat. Hist. Hierosol. I. i. p. 468). It is odd enough, that we should find a parallel passage of the same people in the present age. "Il n'est point d'horreur que ces Turcs n'ayent commis, et semblables aux soldats effrenés, qui dans la sac d'une ville non contens de disposer de tout à leur gré pretendent encore aux succès les moins desirables. Quelque Sipahis ont porté leurs attentats, sur la personne du vieux rabbi de la synagogue, et celle de l'Archevêque Grec." (Memoirs du Baron de Tott, tom. ii. p. 193.)

(54) The emperor, or abbot, describes the scenes of a Turkish camp as if they had been present, Matres correptæ in conspectû filiarum multipliciter repetitis diversorum collibus vexahantur; (is that the true reading?) cum filiæ assistentes carmina præcinere saltando cogerentur. Mox eadem passio ad filias, &c.

(55) See Antioch, and the death of Soliman, in Anne Comnená (Alexiad, 1. vi. p. 168, 169), with the notes of Ducange.

(56) William of Tyre (1. i. c. 9, 10, p. 635,) gives the most authentic and deplorable account of these Turkish conquests.

(57) In his epistle to the count of Flanders, Alexins seems to fall too low beneath his character and dignity; yet it is opposed by Ducange (Not. ad Alexiad, p. 335, &c.), and paraphrased by the abbot Guibert, a contemporary historian. The Greek text no longer exists; and each translator and scribe might say with Guibert (p. 475,) verbis vestita meis, a privilege of most indefinite latitude.

(58) Our best fund of the history of Jerusalem, from Heraclius to the crusades, is contained in two large and original passages of William archbishop of Tyre (l. i. c. 1—10, J. xviii. c. 5, 6), the principal author of the Gesta Dei per Francos. M, de Guignes has composed a very learned Memoire sur le Commerce des François dans le Levant uvant les Croisades, &c. (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxvii. p. 467--500).

(59) Secundum Dominorum dispositionem plerumque lucida plerumque nubila recepit intervalla, et ægrotantium more temporum præsentium gravabatur aut respirabat qualitate (1. i. c. 3, p. 630). The Latinity of William of Tyre is by no means contemptible; but in his account of 490 years, from the loss to the recovery of Jerusalem, he exceeds the true account by thirty years.

clergy and people; a tribute of two pieces of gold was the price of protection; and the sepulchre of Christ, with the church of the Resurrection, was still left in the hands of his votaries. Of these votaries, the most numerous and respectable portion were strangers to Jerusalem: the pilgrimages to the Holy Land had been stimulated, rather than suppressed, by the conquest of the Arabs; and the enthusiasm which had always prompted these perilous journeys, was nourished by the congenial passions of grief and indignation. A crowd of pilgrims from the East and West continued to visit the holy sepulchre, and the adjacent sanctuaries, more especially at the festival of Easter: and the Greeks and Latins, the Nestorians and Jacobites, the Copts and Abyssinians, the Armenians and Georgians, maintained the chapels, the clergy, and the poor of their respective cominunions. The harmony of prayer in so many various tongues, the worship of so many nations in the common temple of their religion, might have afforded a spectacle of edification and peace; but the zeal of the Christian sects was imbittered by hatred and revenge; and in the kingdom of a suffering Messiah, who had pardoned his enemies, they aspired to command and persecute their spiritual brethren. The pre-eminence was asserted by the spirit and numbers of the Franks; and the greatness of Charlemagne (60) protected both the Latin pilgrims and the Catholics of the East. The poverty of Carthage, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, was relieved by the alms of that pious emperor; and many monasteries of Palestine were founded or restored by his liberal devotion. Harun Alrashid, the greatest of the Abbassides, esteemed in his Christian brother a similar supremacy of genius and power: their friendship was cemented by a frequent intercourse of gifts and embassies; and the caliph, without resigning the substantial dominion, presented the emperor with the keys of the holy sepulchre, and perhaps of the city of Jerusalem. In the decline of the Carlovingian monarchy, the republic of Amalphi promoted the interest of trade and religion in the East. Her vessels transported the Latin pilgrims to the coasts of Egypt and Palestine, and deserved, by their useful imports, the favour and alliance of the Fatimite caliphs:(61) an annual fair was instituted on mount Calvary; and the Italian merchants founded the convent and hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the cradle of the monastic and military order, which has since reigned in the isles of Rhodes and of Malta. Had the Christian pilgrims been content to revere the tomb of a prophet, the disciples of Mahomet, instead of blaming, would have imitated, their piety: but these rigid Unitarians were scandalized by a worship which represents the birth, death, and resurrection, of a God; the Catholic images were branded with the name of idols; and the Moslems smiled with indignation(62) at the miraculous flame, which was kindled on the eve of Easter in the holy sepulchre.(63) This pious fraud, first devised in the ninth century, (64) was devoutly cherished by the Latin crusaders, and is annually repeated by the clergy of the Greek, Arme, nian, and Coptic sects, (65) who impose on the credulous spectators(66) for their own benefit, and that of their tyrants. In every age, a principle of tole,

(60) For the transactions of Charlemagne with the Holy Land, see Eginhard (de Vita Caroli Magni, c. 16, p. 79--82), Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administratione Imperii, I. ii. c. 26, p. 80), and Pagí (Critica, tom. iii. A. D. 800, No. 13, 14, 15).

(61) The caliph granted his privileges, Amalphitanis viris amicis et utilium introductoribus (Gesta Dei, p. 934). The trade of Venice to Egypt and Palestine cannot produce so old a title, unless we adopt the Jaughable translation of a Frenchman, who mistook the two factions of the circus (Veneti et Prasini) for

the Venetians and Parisians.

(62) An Arabic chronicle of Jerusalem (apud Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 628, tom. iv. p. 368,) attests the unbelief of the caliph and the historian: yet Cantacuzene presumes to appeal to the Mahomet ans themselves for the truth of this perpetual miracle.

(63) In his Dissertations on Ecclesiastical History, the learned Mosheim has separately discussed this pretended miracle (tom. ii. p. 214-306), de lumine sancti sepulchri.

(64) William of Maimsbury (1. iv. c. ii. p. 209,) quotes the Itinerary of the monk Bernard, an eyewitness, who visited Jerusalem A. D. 870. The miracle is confirmed by another pilgrim some years older; and Mosheim ascribes the invention to the Franks, soon after the decease of Charlemagne.

(65) Our travellers, Sandys (p. 134), Therenot (p. 621-627), Maundrell (p. 94, 95), &c. describe this extravagant faree. The Catholics are puzzled to decide, when the miracle ended, and the trick began. (66) The orientals themselves confess the fraud, and plead necessity and edification (Memoires du Chevalier d'Arvieux, tom. ii. p. 140. Joseph Abudacni, Hist. Copt. c. 20): but I will not attempt, with Mosheim, to explain the mode. Our travellers have failed with the blood of St. Januarius at Naples

ration has been fortified by a sense of interest; and the revenue of the prince and his emir was increased each year, by the expense and tribute of so many thousand strangers.

[A. D. 969-1076.] The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides to the Fatimites was a benefit, rather than an injury, to the Holy Land. A sovereign resident in Egypt was more sensible of the importance of Christian trade; and the emirs of Palestine were less remote from the justice and power of the throne. But the third of these Fatimite caliphs was the famous Hakem,(67) a frantic youth, who was delivered by his impiety and despotism from the fear either of God or man; and whose reign was a wild mixture of vice and folly. Regardless of the most ancient customs of Egypt, he imposed on the women an absolute confinement: the restraint excited the clamours of both sexes; their clamours provoked his fury; a part of Old Cairo was delivered to the flames; and the guards and citizens were engaged many days in a bloody conflict. At first the caliph declared himself a zealous Mussulman, the founder or benefactor of mosques and colleges: twelve hundred and ninety copies of the Koran were transcribed at his expense in letters of gold; and his edict extirpated the vineyards of the Upper Egypt. But his vanity was soon flattered by the hope of introducing a new religion; he aspired above the fame of a prophet, and styled himself the visible image of the most high God, who, after nine apparitions on earth, was at length manifest in his royal person. At the name of Hakem, the lord of the living and the dead, every knee was bent in religious adoration: his mysteries were performed on a mountain near Cairo; sixteen thousand converts had signed his profession of faith; and at the present hour, a free and warlike people, the Druses of mount Libanus, are persuaded of the life and divinity of a madman and tyrant. (68) In his divine character, Hakem hated the Jews and Christians, as the servants of his rivals; while some remains of prejudice or prudence still pleaded in favour of the law of Mahomet. Both in Egypt and Palestine, his cruel and wanton persecution made some martyrs and many apostates: the common rights and special privileges of the sectaries were equally disregarded; and a general interdict was laid on the devotion of strangers and natives. The temple of the Christian world, the church of the Resurrection, was demolished to its foundations; the luminous prodigy of Easter was interrupted, and much profane labour was exhausted to destroy the cave in the rock which properly constitutes the holy sepulchre. At the report of this sacrilege, the nations of Europe were astonished and afflicted: but instead of arming in the defence of the Holy Land, they contented themselves with burning, or banishing, the Jews, as the secret advisers of the impious Barbarian.(69) Yet the calamities of Jerusalem were in some mea. sure alleviated by the inconstancy or repentance of Hakem himself; and the royal mandate was sealed for the restitution of the churches, when the tyrant was assassinated by the emissaries of his sister. The succeeding caliphs resumed the maxims of religion and policy; a free toleration was again granted with the pious aid of the emperor of Constantinople, the holy sepulchre arose from its ruins: and after a short abstinence, the pilgrims returned with an increase of appetite to the spiritual feast.(70) In the sea voyage of Palestine, the dangers were frequent, and the opportunities rare: but the con

(67) See d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 411), Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 390. 397. 400, 401), Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 321-323), and Marei (p. 384-386), an historian of Egypt, translated by Reiske from Arabic into German, and verbally interpreted to me by a friend.

(68) The religion of the Druses is concealed by their ignorance and hypocrisy. Their secret doctrines are confined to the elect who profess a contemplative life; and the vulgar Druses, the most indifferent of men, occasionally conform to the worship of the Mahometans and Christians of their neighbourhood, The little that is, or deserves to be, known, may be seen in the industrious Niebuhr (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 354-357), and the second volume of the recent and instructive Travels of M. de Volney.

(69) See Glaber, 1. iii. c. 7, and the Annals of Baronius and Pagi, A. D. 1009.

(70) Per idem tempus ex universo orbe tam innumerabilis multitudo cœpit confluere ad sepulchrum Salvatoris Hierosolymis, quantum nullus hominum prius sperare poterat. Ordo inferioris plebis.... mediocres....reges et comites....præsules....mulieres multæ nobiles cum pauperioribus....Pluribus enim erat mentis desiderium mori priusquam ad propria reverterentur (Glaber, 1. iv. c. 6. Bouquet, Historians of France, tom, x. p. 50),

version of Hungary opened a safe communication between Germany and Greece. The charity of St. Stephen, the apostle of his kingdom, relieved and conducted his itinerant brethren:(71) and from Belgrade to Antioch, they traversed fifteen hundred miles of a Christian empire. Among the Franks, the zeal of pilgrimage prevailed beyond the example of former times: and the roads were covered with multitudes of either sex, and of every rank, who professed their contempt of life, so soon as they should have kissed the tomb of their Redeemer. Princes and prelates abandoned the care of their dominions; and the numbers of these pious caravans were a prelude to the armies which marched in the ensuing age under the banner of the cross. About thirty years before the first crusade, the archbishop of Mentz, with the bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, undertook this laborious journey from the Rhine to the Jordan; and the multitude of their followers amounted to seven thousand persons. At Constantinople they were hospitably entertained by the emperor; but the ostentation of their wealth provoked the assault of the wild Arabs; they drew their swords with scrupulous reluctance, and sustained a siege in the village of Capernaum, till they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir. After visiting the holy places, they embarked for Italy, but only a remnant of two thousand arrived in safety in their native land. Ingulphus, a secretary of William the conqueror, was a companion of this pilgrimage: he observes 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 back.(72)

[A. D. 1076-1096.] After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite caliphs was invaded by the Turks.(73) One of the lieutenants of Malek Shah, Atsiz the Carizmian, marched into Syria at the head of a powerful army, and reduced Damascus by famine and the sword. Hems, and the other cities of the province, acknowledged the caliph of Bagdad and the sultan of Persia; and the victorious emir advanced without resistance to the banks of the Nile: the Fatimite was preparing to fly into the heart of Africa; but the negroes of his guard and the inhabitants of Cairo made a desperate sally, and repulsed the Turk from the confines of Egypt. In his retreat, he indulged the license of slaughter and rapine: the judge and notaries of Jerusalem were invited to his camp; and their execution was followed by the massacre of three thousand citizens. The cruelty or the defeat of Atsiz was soon punished by the sultan Toucush, the brother of Malek Shah, who, with a higher title and more formidable powers, asserted the dominion of Syria and Palestine. The house of Seljuk reigned about twenty years in Jerusalem ;(74) but the hereditary command of the holy city and territory was intrusted or abandoned to the emir Ortok, the chief of a tribe of Turkmans, whose children, after their expulsion from Palestine, formed two dynasties on the borders of Armenia and Assyria.(75) The oriental Christians and the Latin pilgrims deplored a revolution, which, instead of the regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the north.(76) In his court and camp the great sultan had

(71) Glaber, l. iii. c. 1. Katona (Hist. Critic. Regum Hungariæ, tom. i. p. 304-311,) examines whether St. Stephen founded a monastery at Jerusalem.

(72) Baronius (A. D. 1064, No. 43-56,) has transcribed the greater part of the original narratives of Ingulphus, Marianus, and Lambertus."

(73) See Elmacin (Hist. Saracen. p. 349, 350,) and Abulpharagius. (Dynast. p. 237, vers. Pocock.) M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. iii. part i. p. 215, 216,) adds the testimonies, or rather the names, of Abulfeda and Novairi.

(74) From the expedition of Isar Atsiz (A. H. 469, A. D. 1076,) to the expulsion of the Ortokides (A. D. 1096). Yet William of Tyre (1. i. c. 6, p. 633,) asserts, that Jerusalem was thirty-eight years in the hands of the Turks; and an Arabic Chronicle, quoted by Pagi (tom. iv. p. 202), supposes, that the eity was reduced by a Carizmian general to the obedience of the caliph of Bagdad, Á. H. 463, A. D. 1070, These early dates are not very compatible with the general history of Asia; and I am sure, that as late as A. D. 1064, the regnum Babylonicum (of. Cairo) still prevailed in Palestine (Baronius, A. D. 1064, No. 56).

(75) De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 249-252.

(76) Willerm. Tyr, 1. i. c. 8, p. 634, who strives hard to magnify the Christian grievances. The Turks