volume one

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^ HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 7
moderation the East boasts, restrained the jealous fanaticism
of the Mussulmans. After his death the faithful had much
they were driven from their houses, insulted
more to suffer ;
in their churches ;
the tribute which they liad to pay to the
new masters of Palestine was increased, and they were forbidden
to carry arms or to mount on horseback. A leathern
girdle, which they were never allowed to be without, was the
badge of their servitude ; the conquerors would not permit
the Christians to speak the Arab tongue, sacred to the
disciples of the Koran ; and the people who remained
faithful to Jesus Christ had not liberty even to pronounce
the name of the patriarch of Jerusalem without the permission
of the Saracens.
All these persecutions could not stop the crowd of
Christians who repaired to Jerusalem ; the sight of the
holy city sustaining their courage as it heightened their
devotion. There were no evils, no outrages, that they could
not support with resignation, when they remembered that
Christ had been loaded with chains, and had died upon the
cross in the places they were about to visit. Among the
faithful of the West who arrived in Asia in the midst of the
early conquests of the Mussulmans, history has preserved
the names of St. Arculphus and St. Antoninus of Plaisance.*
The latter had borne arms with distinction, when he determined
to follow tlie pilgrims who were setting out for
Jerusalem. lie traversed Syria, Palestine, and Eg}q:)t. On
his arrival on the banks of the Jordan, Judea had not yet
fallen into the hands of the infidels ; but the fame of tlieir
victories already filled the East, and their armies were
threatening the holy city. Several years after the pilgrimage
of St. Antoninus, Arculphus, accompanied by Peter, a
Erench hermit, set out from the coast of England in a vessel
bound for Syria. He remained nine months at Jerusalem,
then under the dominion of the enemies of Christ. On
liis return to Europe, he related what he had seen in Pales-
* The voyage of St. Antony is found in three very ancient manuscripts,
which may be consulted in the Imperial Library. It has been printed
also in a small volume in 4to. (See the Appendix.) The relation of the
pilgrimage of St. Arculphus, arranged by Adaman in 690, was published
by Gretzer of Ingoldstadt, 1619, in 4to., under this title, " De Locis
Terrae Sanctse." It has since been published by Mabillon.