Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

Nevertheless, other misfortunes awaited the Christians of Palestine; all religious ceremonies were interdicted; the greater part of the churches were converted into stables; that of the Holy Sepulchre was completely destroyed. The Christians, driven from Jerusalem, were scattered throughout the countries of the East. Old historians relate, that the world took part in the mourning of the holy city, and was seized with trouble and consternation. Winter, with its frosts and storms, showed itself in regions where, till that time, it had been unknown. The Bosphorus and the Nile bore sheets of ice upon their bosoms. Earthquakes were felt in Syria and Asia Minor; and their shocks, which were repeated during two months, destroyed several large cities. When the account of the destruction of the holy places arrived in the West, it drew tears from all true Christians. We read in the chronicle of the monk Glaber, that Europe had likewise been presented with signs which foreboded great calamities: a shower of stones had fallen in Burgundy, and a comet and threatening meteors had appeared in the heavens. The agitation was extreme among all Christian nations; nevertheless, they did not take up arms against the Mussulmans, but the whole of their vengeance fell upon the Jews, whom all Europe accused of having provoked the fury of the infidels.

The calamities of the holy city rendered it still more venerable in the eyes of the faithful; persecution redoubled the pious delirium of those who went into Asia to contemplate a city covered with ruins, and to behold an empty sepulchre. It was in Jerusalem, filled with mourning, that God most manifestly distributed his blessings and delighted to point out his will. Impostors constantly took advantage of this opinion of the Christian people, to mislead the credulity of the multitude. To gain credit for their words, it was quite sufficient to exhibit letters which, they said, had fallen from heaven into Jerusalem. At this period, a prediction, which announced [22]the end of the world and the approaching coming of Jesus Christ into Palestine, very much increased the veneration of the people for the holy places. The Christians of the West arrived in crowds at Jerusalem, with the design of dying there, or there awaiting the coming of the sovereign judge. The monk Glaber informs us, that the affluence of pilgrims surpassed all that could be expected from the devotion of these remote times. First were seen on the holy march the poor and the lower classes, then counts, barons, and princes, all reckoning as nothing the grandeurs of the earth.

The inconstancy of Hakim had, in a degree, mitigated the misfortunes of Jerusalem, and he had just granted liberty to the Christians to rebuild their churches, when he died by the hand of the assassin. His successor, guided by a wiser policy, tolerated both pilgrimages and the exercise of the Christian religion. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was not entirely rebuilt till thirty years after its destruction; but the spectacle of its ruins still inflamed the zeal and the devotion of the Christians.

In the eleventh century the Latin Church allowed pilgrimages to suffice instead of canonical penitences; sinners were condemned to quit their country for a time, and to lead a wandering life, after the example of Cain. This mode of performing penance agreed better with the active and restless character of the people of the West. It ought to be added, that the devotion of pilgrimages, whatever may be the opinion of an enlightened philosophy, has been received, and even encouraged, in all religions. It belongs, too, to a sentiment natural to man. If the sight of a land once inhabited by heroes and sages awakens in us touching and noble remembrances; if the soul of the philosopher finds itself agitated at the sight of the ruins of Palmyra, Babylon, or Athens; what lively emotions must not the Christians have felt on beholding places which God had sanctified by his presence and his blessings?

The Christians of the West, almost all unhappy in their own countries, and who often lost the sense of their evils in long voyages, appeared to be only employed in seeking upon earth the traces of a consoling and helpful divinity, or of some holy personage. There existed no province without its martyr or its apostle, whose support they went to implore; there was no city or secluded spot which did not preserve the tradition of a miracle, or had not a chapel open to pilgrims. The most guilty of sinners, or the most fervent of the faithful, exposed themselves to the greatest perils, and repaired to the most distant places. Sometimes they directed their steps to Apulia and Calabria, they visited Mount Gargan, celebrated by the apparition of St. Michael, or Mount Cassin, rendered famous by the miracles of St. Benedict; sometimes they traversed the Pyrenees, and, in a country given up to the Saracens, esteemed themselves happy in praying before the relics of St. Jago, the patron saint of Galicia. Some, like King Robert, went to Rome, and prostrated themselves on the tombs of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul; others travelled as far as Egypt, where Christ had passed his infancy, and penetrated to the solitudes of Scete and Memphis, inhabited by the disciples of Anthony and Paul.

A great number of pilgrims undertook the voyage to Palestine; they entered Jerusalem by the gate of Ephraim where they paid a tribute to the Saracens. After having prepared themselves by fasting and prayer, they presented themselves in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, covered with a funeral cloth or robe, which they preserved with care during the remainder of their lives, and in which they were buried after their death. They viewed with holy respect Mount Sion, the Mount of Olives, and the Valley of Jehoshaphat; they quitted Jerusalem to visit Bethlehem, where the Saviour of the world was born; Mount Tabor, rendered sacred by the transfiguration; and all the places memorable for his miracles. The pilgrims next bathed in the waters of the Jordan, [23]and gathered in the territory of Jericho palms which they bore back as evidences and relics to the West.

Such were the devotion and spirit of the tenth and eleventh centuries, that the greater part of the Christians would have thought themselves wanting in the duties of religion if they had not performed some pilgrimage. He who had escaped from a danger, or triumphed over his enemies, assumed the pilgrim’s staff, and took the road to the holy places; he who had obtained by his prayers the preservation of a father or of a son, went to return his thanks to heaven far from his domestic hearth, in places rendered holy by religious traditions. A father often devoted his child in the cradle to a pilgrimage, and the first duty of an affectionate and obedient son, when past the age of childhood, was to accomplish the vow of his parents. More than once a dream, a vision in the midst of sleep, imposed upon a Christian the obligation of performing a pilgrimage. Thus, the idea of these pious journeys mixed itself up with all the affections of the heart, and with all the prejudices of the human mind.

Pilgrims were welcomed everywhere, and in return for the hospitality they received, they were only asked for their prayers; often, indeed, the only treasure they carried with them. One of them, desirous to embark at Alexandria for Palestine, presented himself with his scrip and staff on board a ship, and offered a book of the holy Evangelists in payment for his passage. Pilgrims, on their route, had no other defence against the attacks of the wicked but the cross of Christ, and no other guides but those angels whom God has told “ to watch over his children, and to direct them in all their ways .”

The greatest merit in the eyes of the faithful, next to that of pilgrimage, was to devote themselves to the service of the pilgrims. Hospitals were built upon the banks of rivers, upon the heights of mountains, in the midst of cities, and in desert places, for the reception of these travellers. In the ninth century, the pilgrims who left Burgundy to repair to Italy, were received in a monastery built upon Mount Cenis. In the following century, two monasteries, in which were received travellers who had strayed from their way, occupied the places of the temples of idolatry on Montes Jovis, [24]and thence lost the name they had received from Paganism, and took that of their pious founder, St. Bernard de Menton. Christians who travelled to Judea, found on the frontiers of Hungary, and in the provinces of Asia Minor, a great number of asylums raised by charity.