صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

had put an end to the Mediterranean commonwealth in which it had gathered its strength. . . . The Mediterranean had been a Roman lake; it now became, for the most part, a Muslem lake."** This statement of the Belgian historian must be accepted with some reservations. Commercial relations between Western Europe and the Eastern countries which had been subdued by the Muslems, were not suspended. Merchants and pilgrims continued to travel back and forth, and exotic oriental products were available in Europe, for example, in Gaul.11

44

Primitive Islam had distinguished itself by tolerance. In conquered Christian regions the Arabs had, for the most part, preserved churches and Christian service; they had not prohibited the practice of Christian charity. In the epoch of Charlemagne, at the beginning of the ninth century, in Palestine there were inns and hospitals for the pilgrims; new churches and monasteries were being restored and built; for that purpose Charlemagne sent to Palestine copious "alms". Libraries were being organized in the monasteries. Pilgrims visited the Holy Land unmolested. These relations between the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne and Palestine, in connection with the exchange of some embassies between the Western monarch and the caliph Harun ar-Rashid, led to the conclusion supported by some scholars that a kind of Frankish protectorate had been established in Palestine under Charlemagne as far as the Christian interests in the Holy Land were concerned, the political power of the caliph in that country remaining untouched. On the other hand, another group of historians, deny

45

43 H. Pirenne, "Mahomet et Charlemagne", Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire (Brussels, 1922), I, 85; see a passage on p. 86: "Without Islam the Frankish Empire would probably never have existed and Charlemagne, without Mahomet, would be unconceivable." Idem, Medieval cities (Princeton, 1925), pp. 24, 26 (in French, Les villes du moyen âge (Brussels, 1927), pp. 25, 28).

44 See L. Halphen, La conquête de la Méditerranée par les Européens au XI-e et au XII-e siècles, Mélanges d'histoire offerts à H. Pirenne (Bruxelles-Paris, 1926), I, 175. J. Ebersolt, Orient et Occident. Recherches sur les influences byzantines et orientales en France evant les croisades (Paris, 1928), pp. 56-57. N. Iorga, in the Revue Historique du Sud-est Européen, VI (1929), 77.

45 See A. Vasiliev, "Charlemagne and Harun ar-Rashid", Viz. Vremennik, XX (1913), 63-116 (in Russian). L. Bréhier, Les croisades, the fifth ed. (Paris, 1928), pp. 22-34. Idem, "Charlemagne et la Palestine", Revue historique, CLVII (1928), pp. 277-91 (Bréhier gives the full bibliography of the problem).

ing the importance of those relations, says that the "protectorate" was never established and that "it is a myth quite analogous to the legend of Charlemagne's crusade to the Holy Land"; and the title of one of the most recent articles on this subject is "The legend of Charlemagne's protectorate in the Holy Land."47 I have not dwelt upon this problem merely to explain the term "Frankish protectorate" which, like many other terms, is conventional and rather vague; but I have stated it in order to show that already at the opening of the ninth century the Frankish Empire had very important interests in Palestine, a fact which is of considerable significance for the further development of the international relations preceding the crusades.

Some separate cases of assaults on the churches and Christians occurred in the tenth century, but they had no religious motive, so that such unfortunate incidents were only sporadic.

In the second half of the tenth century the brilliant victories of the Byzantine troops under Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimisces over the eastern Arabs made Aleppo and Antioch in Syria vassal states of the Empire, and after that the Byzantine army, probably, entered Palestine.48 These military successes of Byzantium had a repercussion in Jerusalem, so that the French historian Bréhier judges it possible to speak of the Byzantine protectorate over the Holy Land which put an end to the Frankish protectorate there.49

When in the second half of the tenth century (in 969) Palestine had passed over to the Egyptian dynasty of the Fatimids, the new position of the country seems not to have brought about, at least at the beginning, any substantial change in the life of the eastern Christians, and pilgrims continued to come to Palestine in safety. But in the eleventh century circumstances changed.

46 E. Joranson, "The alleged Frankish protectorate in Palestine", The American Historical Review, XXXII (1927), 260. See also V. Barthold, "Charlemagne and Harun ar-Rashid", Christiansky Vostok (St. Petersburg, 1912), I, 69-94 (in Russian).

* A. Kleinclausz, "La Légende du protectorat de Charlemagne sur la Terre sainte", Syria, VII (1926), 211-33.

48 See the first volume of this book, pp. 375-78.

49 L. Bréhier, op. cit., pp. 38-39.

The insane Fatimid caliph Hakim, this "Egyptian Nero", 50 began, as we have seen above,51 a violent persecution of Christians and Jews all over his possessions. In 1009 he caused the Temple of the Resurrection and Golgotha in Jerusalem to be destroyed. In his rage for destroying the churches he stopped only because he was afraid that a similar fate would befall mosques in Christian regions.52

When L. Bréhier wrote of the Byzantine protectorate over the Holy Land, he had in view a statement of an Arabian historian of the eleventh century, Yahya of Antioch. The latter says that in 1012 a Bedouin chief who had revolted against the caliph Hakim took possession of Syria, forced the Christians to restore the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, and made a bishop the Patriarch of Jerusalem; then the Bedouin "helped him to build up the Church of the Resurrection and restored many places in it as much as he could.53 Interpreting this text a Russian scholar (V. Rosen) remarks that the Bedouin acted "probably in order to win the good will of the Greek Emperor."54 Bréhier has ascribed Rosen's hypothesis to Yahya's text. Taking into consideration that this important statement of the Bedouin's motive does not belong to Yahya, I think that we may not affirm Bréhier's theory of the Byzantine protectorate over Palestine as positively as he does in his book.55

But in any event, that was only the beginning of the restoration of the Holy Land. After Hakim's death in 1021, a time of tolerance for the Christians ensued. A peace was made between Byzantium and the Fatimids, and the Byzantine emperors were able to take up the real restoration of the Temple of the Resur

50 Schlumberger, L'Épopée byzantine à la fin du dixième siècle (Paris, 1900), II, 442. 51 See vol. I, 379.

62 See M. Canard, "Les expéditions des arabes contre Constantinople dans l'histoire et dans la légende", Journal Asiatique, CCVIII (1926), 94.

53 V. Rosen, The Emperor Basil Bulgaroctonus (St. Petersburg, 1883), p. 47 (Arabic text); p. 49 (Russian translation). Yahia Ibn Saïd Antiochensis, Annales, ed. Cheikho (Beirut-Paris, 1909), p. 201 (Arabic text).

54 V. Rosen, op. cit., p. 356.

55 Bréhier gives Yahya's statement from Schlumberger, L'Épopée, II, 448. Schlumberger using Yahya from Rosen gives the correct account as far as Rosen's hypothesis is concerned.

rection. The restoration of the Temple was completed in the middle of the eleventh century under Emperor Constantine Monomachus. The Christian quarter was surrounded by a strong wall. Pilgrims could go again to the Holy Land, and among the other pilgrims mentioned in our sources we have the name of a most celebrated man, Robert the Devil, Duke of Normandy; it is known that he never returned from his pilgrimage: on his way back from Jerusalem he died at Nicaea, in 1035.56 Perhaps, at the same time, that is to say, in the fourth decade of the eleventh century, there came to Jerusalem and fought against the Moslems in Syria and Asia Minor the famous Varangian of that epoch, Harald Haardraade, supported by a body of Scandinavians who arrived with him from the north.57

But vexations against the Christians soon recommenced. In 1056, the Holy Sepulchre was closed, and more than three hundred Christians were exiled from Jerusalem.58

The temple of the Resurrection, after its destruction, was evidently restored with adequate elegance. A Russian pilgrim, the abbot (igumen) Daniel, who visited Palestine in the first years of the twelfth century, that is to say, soon after the foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, enumerates the collumns of the Temple, speaks of its floor decorated with marble, and of six doors, and gives interesting information on the mosaics. The same Russian pilgrim describes many churches, relics, and places of Palestine mentioned in the New Testament.59 As say

5 See E. Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England (Oxford, 1870), I, 473: II, 187. J. Ebersolt, Orient et Occident. Recherches sur les influences byzantines et orientales en France avant les croisades (Paris et Bruxelles, 1928), p. 79. L. Bréhier, op. cit., 45.

5 See Vasilievsky, "The Varangian-Russian and Varangian-English Guard in Constantinople in the eleventh and twelfth centuries", Works, I, 265-66 (in Russian). K. Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People (New York, 1915), I, 278.

58 Miracula S. Wlframni, in Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti in saeculorum classes distributa. Saeculum III. . . Collegit D. Lucas d'Achery ac cum eo edidit D. T. Mabillon (Paris, 1668-1701), pp. 381-82. See J. Ebersolt, Orient et Occident (Paris, 1928), P. 74.

5 Life and pilgrimage of Daniel, igumen of the Russian Land. Pravoslavny Palestinsky Sbornik, part 3, 15-16 (in original old Russian). In French: Vie et pèlerinage de Daniel, hégoumène russe. Itinéraires russes en Orient, transl. by B. de Khitrowo (Genève, 1889), I, 12 ff. See H. Vincent et F. Abel, Jérusalem (Paris, 1914), II, 258.

Daniel and an Anglo-Saxon pilgrim, Saewulf, his contemporary, "the pagan Saracens" (i. e. Arabs), hiding themselves in the mountains and caves, sometimes attacked the travelling pilgrims and robbed them. "The Saracens, always laying snares for the Christians, lie hidden in the hollow places of the mountains and the caves of the rocks, watching day and night, and always on the lookout for those whom they can attack."

9160

The Arabs' tolerance towards the Christians also manifested itself in the West. When, for instance, at the end of the eleventh century the Spaniards conquered the city of Toledo from the Arabs, they were surprised to find Christian churches in the city untouched and to learn that services continued to be held therein undisturbed. Similarly, when, also at the end of the eleventh century, the Normans took possession of Sicily, they found there, in spite of more than two hundred years of Arabian rule in the island, a very large number of Christians, who were freely professing their faith.

Thus, the first incident of the eleventh century which struck the Christian West painfully was the destruction of the Temple of the Resurrection and Golgotha in 1009. Another event connected with the Holy Land took place in the second half of the eleventh century.

As has been shown above,1 the Seljuq Turks, after they had crushed the Byzantine troops at Manzikert, in 1071, founded the Sultanate of Rum or Iconium in Asia Minor and proceeded to advance successfully in all directions. Their military successes had their repercussion at Jerusalem: in 1070, a Turkish general, Atzig, marched upon Palestine and captured Jerusalem. Shortly after, the city revolted, so that Atzig had to lay siege to it again. Jerusalem was retaken and terribly sacked. Then the Turks conquered Antioch in Syria, established themselves at Nicaea, Cyzicus, and Smyrna in Asia Minor, and occupied the islands Chios, Lesbos, Samos, and Rhodes. The condition of European pilgrims in Jerusalem and other places grew worse. Even if the persecu

60 Daniel, Itinéraires russes, I, 12 ff. Pilgrimage of Saewulf to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Palestine Pilgrim's Text Society (London, 1896), p. 8.

61 See the first vol., 429-33.

« السابقةمتابعة »