THE TURKS IN POWER

[1Sidenote: [1076-1088 A.D.]]

2New perils and the most violent persecutions at this period threatened both the pilgrims of the West and the Christians of Palestine. Asia was once again about to change masters, and tremble beneath a fresh tyranny. During several centuries the rich countries of the East had been subject to continual invasions from the wild hordes of Tatary. The Turks, issuing from countries situated beyond the Oxus, had rendered themselves masters of Persia. Palestine yielded to the power of the Turks. The conquerors spared neither the Christians nor the children of Ali, whom the caliph of Baghdad represented to be the enemies of God. The Egyptian garrison was massacred, and the mosques and the churches were delivered up to pillage. The Holy City was flooded with the blood of Christians and Mussulmans.

3Other tribes of Turks, led by Suleiman, penetrated into Asia Minor. They took possession of all the provinces through which pilgrims were accustomed to pass on their way to Jerusalem. The standard of the prophet floated over the walls of Edessa, Iconium, Tarsus, and Antioch. Thousands of children had been circumcised. Everywhere the laws of the _Koran_ took the place of those of the Evangelists and of Greece. The black or white tents of the Turks covered the plains and the mountains of Bithynia and Cappadocia, and their flocks pastured among the ruins of the monasteries and churches. The Greeks had never had to contend against more cruel and terrible enemies than the Turks. In the midst of revolutions and civil wars, the Greek Empire was hastening to its fall.

4Whilst the empire of the East approached its fall and appeared sapped by time and corruption, the institutions of the West were in their infancy. The empire and the laws of Charlemagne no longer existed. Nations had no relations with each other; and mistaking their political interests, made wars without considering their consequences or their dangers, and concluded peace without being at all aware whether it was advantageous or not. Royal authority was nowhere sufficiently strong to arrest the progress of anarchy and the abuses of feudalism. At the same time that Europe was full of soldiers and covered with strong castles, the states themselves were without support against their enemies, and had not an army to defend them.

5Ten years before the invasion of Asia Minor by the Turks, Michael Ducas, the successor of Romanus Diogenes, had implored the assistance of the pope and the princes of the West. He had promised to remove all the barriers which separated the Greek from the Roman church, if the Latins would take up arms against the infidels. Gregory VII then filled the chair of St. Peter. The hope of extending the religion and the empire of the holy see into the East made him receive kindly the humble supplications of Michael Ducas. Excited by his discourses, fifty thousand pilgrims agreed to follow Gregory to Constantinople, and thence to Syria; but the affairs of Europe suspended the execution of his projects.

6Every day the power of the popes was augmented by the progress of Christianity, and by the ever-increasing influence of the Latin clergy. Rome was become a second time the capital of the world, and appeared to have resumed, under the monk Hildebrand, the empire it had enjoyed under the cæsars. Armed with the two-edged sword of Peter, Gregory loudly proclaimed that all the kingdoms of the earth were under the dominion of the holy see, and that his authority ought to be as universal as the church of which he was the head. These dangerous pretensions, fostered by the opinions of his age, engaged him immediately in violent disputes with the emperor of Germany. He desired also to dictate laws to France, Spain, Sweden, Poland, and England; and thinking of nothing but making himself acknowledged as the great arbiter of states, he launched his anathemas even against the throne of Constantinople, which he had undertaken to defend, and gave no more attention to the deliverance of Jerusalem.

7After the death of Gregory, Victor III, although he pursued the policy of his predecessor and had to contend against the emperor of Germany and the party of the anti-pope Guibert (Clement III), did not neglect the opportunity of making war against the Mussulmans. The Saracens, inhabiting Africa, disturbed the navigation of the Mediterranean, and threatened the coast of Italy. Victor invited the Christians to take arms, and promised them the remission of all their sins if they went to fight against the infidels. The inhabitants of Pisa, Genoa, and several other cities, urged by their zeal for religion and their desire to defend their commerce, equipped fleets, levied troops, and made a descent upon the coasts of Africa, where, if we are to believe the chronicles of the time, they cut in pieces an army of one hundred thousand Saracens.[b]