and piety.

The natural desire of visiting those holy spots which have been sanctified by the presence, and rendered memorable by the sufferings, of the Son of God, drew, during the early ages of Christianity, crowds of devout worshippers and pilgrims to Jerusalem. Among the most illustrious and enthusiastic of the many wanderers to the Holy City was the empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, who, with the warm feelings of a recent conversion, visited in person every place and every object in Palestine associated with the memory of him who died for mankind on the blessed cross. With a holy zeal and a lively enthusiasm, she attempted to fix by unquestionable tradition the scene of each memorable event in the gospel narrative; and Christendom is indebted to her for the real or pretended discovery (about two hundred and ninety-eight years after the death of Christ) of the Holy Sepulchre. Over this sacred monument the empress and her son Constantine caused to be erected the magnificent church of the Resurrection, or, as it is now called, the church of the Holy Sepulchre; and they adorned all those places in the Holy Land which remind us most forcibly of the earthly existence and death of Jesus Christ, with magnificent churches and religious houses.

The example of this pious princess, and the pretended discoveries made by her of holy relics, caused a great increase in the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The conquest of Palestine by the Arabians, (A. D. 637,) stimulated rather than suppressed them; it added to the merit by increasing the danger and difficulty of the undertaking, whilst the enthusiasm which prompted the long and perilous journey was increased by the natural feelings of sorrow and indignation at the loss of the holy places, and the possession of them by the conquering infidels. Year after year, and century after century, hundreds and thousands of both sexes, of all ranks and every age, the monarch and the peasant, the noble and the beggar, flocked to the shrines and the altars of Palestine. They visited, with pious affection, Bethlehem, where the Saviour first saw the light; they bathed in the waters of the river Jordan, wherein he was baptized, and wept and prayed upon Mount Calvary, where he was crucified.

On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Arabians, the security of the christian population had been provided for in a solemn guarantee given under the hand and seal of the caliph Omar, to Sophronius the patriarch. One fourth of the entire city, with the church of the Resurrection, the Holy Sepulchre, and the great Latin convent, had been left in the hands of the Christians and the pilgrims were permitted, on payment of a trifling tribute, freely to visit the various objects of their regard. When the sceptre was transferred from the family of the Abassides to the Fatimites, and the caliphs of Egypt obtained possession of Palestine, the same mild and tolerant government was continued. In the eleventh century, the zeal of pilgrimage had reached its height, and the caravans of pilgrims had become so numerous as to be styled the armies of the Lord. The old and the young, women and children, flocked in crowds to Jerusalem, and in the year 1064 the Holy Sepulchre was visited by an enthusiastic band of seven thousand pilgrims. The year following, however, Jerusalem was conquered by the wild Turcomans, three thousand of the citizens were massacred, and the command over the holy city and territory was confided to the emir Ortok, the chief of a savage pastoral tribe.

Under the iron yoke of these fierce northern strangers, the Christians were fearfully oppressed; they were driven from their churches; divine worship was ridiculed and interrupted; and the patriarch of the Holy City was dragged by the hair of his head over the sacred pavement of the church of the Resurrection, and cast into a dungeon, to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock. The pilgrims who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of the Holy City, were plundered, imprisoned, and frequently massacred; a piece of gold, was exacted as the price of admission to the holy sepulchre, and many, unable to pay the tax, were driven by the swords of the Turcomans from the very threshold of the object of all their hopes, the bourne of their long pilgrimage, and were compelled to retrace their weary steps in sorrow and anguish to their distant homes. The intelligence of these cruelties aroused the religious chivalry of Christendom; “a nerve was touched of exquisite feeling, and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe.” Then arose the wild enthusiasm of the crusades, and men of all ranks, and even monks and priests, animated by the exhortations of the pope and the preachings of Peter the Hermit, flew to arms, and enthusiastically undertook “the pious and glorious enterprize” of rescuing the holy sepulchre of Christ from the foul abominations of the heathen.

When intelligence of the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders (A. D. 1099) had been conveyed to Europe, the zeal of pilgrimage blazed forth with increased fierceness: it had gathered intensity from the interval of its suppression by the wild Turcomans, and promiscuous crowds of both sexes, old men and children, virgins and matrons, thinking the road then open and the journey practicable, successively pressed forwards towards the Holy City. The infidels had indeed been driven out of Jerusalem, but not out of Palestine. The lofty mountains bordering the sea coast were infested by warlike bands of fugitive Mussulmen, who maintained themselves in various impregnable castles and strongholds, from whence they issued forth upon the high-roads, cut off the communication between Jerusalem and the sea-ports, and revenged themselves for the loss of their habitations and property by the indiscriminate pillage of all travellers. The Bedouin horsemen, moreover, making rapid incursions from beyond the Jordan, frequently kept up a desultory and irregular warfare in the plains; and the pilgrims, consequently, whether they approached the Holy City by land or by sea, were alike exposed to almost daily hostility, to plunder, and to death.

To alleviate the dangers and distresses to which they were exposed, to guard the honour of the saintly virgins and matrons, and to protect the gray hairs of the venerable palmer, nine noble knights, who had greatly distinguished themselves at the siege and capture of Jerusalem, formed a holy brotherhood in arms, and entered into a solemn compact to aid one another in clearing the highways, and in protecting the pilgrims through the passes and defiles of the mountains to the Holy City. Warmed with the religious and military fervour of the day, and animated by the sacredness of the cause to which they had devoted their swords, they called themselves the Poor Fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ. They renounced the world and its pleasures, and in the holy church of the Resurrection, in the presence of the patriarch of Jerusalem, they embraced vows of perpetual chastity, obedience, and poverty, after the manner of monks. Uniting in themselves the two most popular qualities of the age, devotion and valour, and exercising them in the most popular of all enterprises, they