their vexations they were forced to send their children to Muslim schools.

Troubles on the Byzantine frontier led the Khalif to transfer his residence for a while to Damascus, but the course of events induced him to return to Samarra, where he built a magnificent quarter of the town to which he assigned the name of Jafariyya. At the conclusion of his reign he gave way to excesses, and was murdered in A.D. 861 by a Turkish soldier who had been bribed to this atrocious deed by the Khalif's own son.

The parricide, by name Muntasir, who succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, lived but five months to enjoy the reward of his infamy. His death in the same year, A.D. 861, was, it is supposed, occasioned by poison.

From this time onward, for a period of nearly four hundred years, the history of the Baghdad Khalifat is a mere narration of intrigue and rebellion. At first the Turkish soldiery obtained the upper hand, and cruelty, rapine, and lust were prevalent throughout the empire. A state of affairs which lasted from A.D. 861 to 945, when the citizens of Baghdad seeing no other means of escape from their tyranny and lawlessness, secretly applied to Ahmad ibn Buyah, a successful military adventurer, to take possession of the capital of Islam. In response to this invitation, Ahmad, marching upon Baghdad, obtained possession of the city without having to fight a battle. These momentous events occurred in A.D. 945. From that date onwards till A.D. 1050, the ascendency of the House of Buyah was supreme. It is also noteworthy that at this period the Khalif

made a formal renunciation of his temporal dominions, remaining simply the Imam, or Spiritual head of the Faithful. At another time the Karmathians and the Fatimites gained such ascendency as to leave successive Khalif's little more than a shadow of sovereignty.

But the end was drawing near. In the year 1050, the Turkish general of that day exercised at the court of the Khalif an almost unlimited authority. It chanced, however, that he had occasion to quit Baghdad for a while, to oppose rebels who swarmed on every side of the city. The Khalif thought this a favourable opportunity to get rid of his hated rival, and accordingly appealed for assistance to Tugril Bey, the Saljukian Monarch of the Turks. Nothing loath the ruler of these hordes of plunderers appeared at the gates of Baghdad, which were thrown open to him, and in December, A.D. 1050, he entered the city, which he occupied in force. It is true that riots occurred, but the power of the Saljuks was never seriously challenged, and in due course the Khalif was forced to confirm Tugril Bey in the possession of all the kingdoms which the latter had snatched from the Muslim Empire. For little less than two hundred years these barbarians held sway more or less powerful, according to the circumstances of the hour. A change, however, was at hand.

Towards the close of the twelfth century the Mongols under the terrible Jinghiz Khan commenced to issue from the wilds of Asia, and soon overran the Muslim Empire. In vain did the weak and feeble Khalifs endeavour to stem the tide of rapine and plunder. City after city fell before the invaders till, at length, Hulaku Khan determined to make him

self master of the whole of Western Asia. Sweeping down with immense hordes he soon appeared before the walls of Baghdad, and on 5th February, A.D. 1258, the standard of the Mongols was planted on the towers of the city. The town was given up to fire and slaughter, the Khalif Mustasim then reigning, was thrown into prison, where he subsequently died, and the Abbaside dynasty ceased to exist after a not wholly inglorious sovereignty of five hundred years.

CHAPTER VI

THE CRUSADES. A.D. 1095-1291

It has been well observed that "the desire of visiting the places in which celebrated events have occurred seems, indeed, a curiosity too deeply implanted in our nature to belong to any particular time or condition of man but the associations connected with the hallowed scene of Human Redemption were calculated to sanctify this feeling with peculiar interest, and rendered journeys to Jerusalem not uncommon in some of the earlier ages of Christianity."

This ardour for pilgrimages was fostered and encouraged by the Church of Rome, which, turning to its own ends the general belief entertained in the tenth century as to the approaching end of the world, urged its votaries not only to do penance for their sins, but to flock to Jerusalem as a meritorious act of piety calculated to bring down Divine blessings. The flame of religious zeal was further fanned and extended by the spirit of chivalry, which gave to the Middle Ages a splendour of glory and renown such as has scarcely been surpassed in the annals of the world. In the tenth century the Holy City of Palestine was in the

hands of the Saljukian Turks, nominally acting under the authority of the Abbaside Khalifs. Under the rule of these fanatical and cruel governors, the unhappy Christians were exposed to insult and oppression to a degree which stung to frenzy their coreligionists throughout the length and breadth of Christendom.

This craving to "do and dare " was also materially increased by the ravages of the Fatimites and the Turks in the Byzantine dominions up to the outskirts of the mighty city of Constantinople, ravages which led to an appeal from the Emperor to the Pope for that assistance without which it seemed probable that the Cross of Christianity would be laid low in the dust by the Crescent of Islam. It may be well imagined that in such circumstances it needed but a spark to produce a general conflagration. It chanced that the unquenchable flame of fanaticism was lit by the well-known Peter the Hermit, a poor gentleman of Picardy, who, forsaking the service of his feudal lord, Eustace de Bouillon, took refuge in the cloister. After a while he repaired as a pilgrim to the Holy Land, where he was shocked at the cruelties and profanations which he witnessed at every turn. Fired with enthusiasm, he conceived that he had a mandate from Heaven to purge Jerusalem from its Muhammadan possessors, and he commenced a self-imposed mission to rouse the princes and peoples of the West to avenge the disgrace which Christendom was forced to suffer at the hands of the Muslims. The success which attended his efforts was little less than incredible. The Pope of Rome sent him the all-powerful support of the Church; nobles and men of wealth sold or mort

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