volume one

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 11
To the desire of visitiug the tomb of Jerusalem was joined
the earnest ^^•ish to procure relics, which were then sought
for \\'ith eagerness by the devotion of the faithful. All who
returned from the East made it their glory to bring back to
their country some precious remains of Christian antiquity,
and above all the bones of holy martyrs, which constituted
the ornament and the riclies of then* churches, and upon
which princes and kings swore to respect truth and justice.
The productions of Asia likewise attracted the attention of
the people of Europe. AYe read in* Gregory of Tours, that
the wine of Graza was celebrated in Erance in the reign of
Gontran ;t that the silk and precious stones of the East
added to the splendour of the dresses of the great and the
noble ; and that 8t. Eloi, at the court of Dagobert, did nob
disdain to clothe himself in the rich stufis of Asia. Commerce
attracted a great number of Europeans to Egypt,
vSyria, and Palestine. The Venetians, the Genoese, the
Pisans,—the merchants of Amalfi and Marseilles,—had all
stores at Alexandria, in the maritime cities of Phenicia, and
in the city of Jerusalem. Before the church of St, Mariela-Latine,
says the monk Bernard, already quoted, extended
a large place or square, which was called the jMarket of the
Eranks. Every year, on the 15th of September, a fair was
opened on jNlount Cahary, in which Avere exchanged the
productions of Europe for those of the East.
Greek and Syrian Christians were established even in the
city of Bagdad, where they devoted themselves to trade,
exercised the art of medicine, and cidtivated the sciences.
They attained by their learning the most considerable employments,
and sometimes even obtained the command of
* Alii causa negotiaiionis acti, alii causa devotionis et peregiunatioyns.
—J. DE ViTRY. Quod Latini devotionis gratia aut negotiationis advenientes.—Sanuti.
Non dcfuerunt de occidentalibus niulti qui loca
sancia, licet in hostiurn potestate redacta, aut devotionis, aut cotnmerciorum,
aut utriusque gratia, visitarent aliquoties.—William of Tyre.
Diversarum gentium undique prope innumera multitudo, 15 die Septembris
anniversario more, in Hierosolymarn conveaire solet ad commercia
mutuis conditionibus ct emptionibus peragenda.—Voyage of St.
Arculphus.
f There is an excellent dissertation, by M. de Guegnes, upon the commerce
of the French in the Levant before the Crusades, in the 37th vol.
of the " Memoires de rAcadeuiie des Inscriptions."