volume one

10 niSTOET OF THE CEUSADE3.
m tlie advancement of reason are the elect of God. Intelligence
polished the manners of the chiefs of Islamism, and
inspired them with a toleration till that time unknown to
Mussulmans, ^"hilst the Arabians of .Ifrica were pursuing
their conquests towards the West, ^Yhilst they took posses-
sion of Sicily, and Eome itself saw its subui'bs and its
churches of St. Peter and St. Paul invaded and pillaged by
infidels, the servants of Jesus Christ prayed in peace within
the walls of Jerusalem.* The pilgrims of the West, who
arrived there without danger, were received in an hospital,
the foundation of which -was attributed to Charlemagne.
According to the report of the monli Bemard,t who himself
performed the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, about the
middle of the ninth centun', the hospital for the pilgrims of
the Latin Church was composed of twelve houses or hos-
telries. To this pious establishment were attached fields,
vineyards, and a garden, situated in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
This hospital, like those which the emperor of the West
founded in the north of Europe, had a library always open
to Christians and travellers. From the tenth century there
existed in the neighbourhood of the Fountain of Siloe, a
cemetery, in -^hich were interred the pilgrims who died at
Jerusalem. Among the tombs of the faithful dwelt the
servants of God. This place, says the relation of St.
Antoninus, covered with fruit-trees, dotted -with sepulchres
and humble cells, brings together the dead and the liA-ing,
and presents at once a cheerfid and a melancholy picture.
* At the commencement of the ninth century, pilgrims flocked thither
quite from the extremities of Europe. Dicuil, who wrote in Ireland in
the year 825, gives several details :
—
Fidelis frater. . . . narravit coram
me .... qnhd odorationis causa in urbe Jerlm. {Hierusalem) clerici et
laid a Britannia usque ad Nilum velijicavei^nt.—Dicuil, De Mensura
Orbis, edit. Walcknacr, p. 17.
Ibi habetur hospitale, in quo suscij}iunfur omnes qui causa devotionis
t
ilium adeunt locum, lingua, loquentes Romand, cui adjacet ecclesia in
honore SanctcB Maria; nobilissimam habent bibliothecam studio prcedicti
imperatoris Caroli Magni.—This passage is taken from the Voyage of
the monk Bernard to the Holy Land. This monk was a Frenchman by
birth ;
he set out for Palestine in 870 with two other monks, one of whom
was of the monastery of St. Innocent, in the country of Benevento, and
the other a Spanish monk. (See an account of tb.is pilgrimage in the
Appendix.)