Very few words are needed to introduce this volume. It is intended to give a history of the city of Jerusalem from about the year 30 to the present time. This period includes the siege and capture by Titus, the last revolts of the Jews, the Christian occupation of three hundred years, the Mohammedan conquest, the building by the Mohammedans of the Dome of the Rock, the Crusades, the Christian kingdom, the reconquest of the city, and a long period of Mohammedan occupation, during which no event h

It is our object to write a book which may serve as a historical account, complete so far as it goes, of the principal events with which Jerusalem is concerned, from the time when its history, as connected with the Bible, ceases, till the present; that is to say, from the year A.D. 33 downwards. But it is difficult to take up the thread of the story at this date, and we are forced either to go as far back as Herod the Great, or to begin our narrative with the events which preceded the siege of J

The events at Rome which elevated Vespasian to the throne were the principal reasons that the siege of Jerusalem was not actually commenced till the early summer of the year 70, when, in April Titus began his march from Cæsarea. His army consisted of four legions: the 5th, under Sextus Cerealis; the 10th, under Lartius Lepidus; the 12th, that which had suffered defeat under Cestius, and was still in disgrace, and the 15th. Besides this formidable force of regulars, he had a very large number of

Its Temple destroyed, its people killed, led captive, or dispersed, Jerusalem must have presented, for the next fifty years, at least, a dreary and desolate appearance. At first its only inhabitants were the Roman garrison, but gradually the Jews came dropping in, at first, we may suppose, on sufferance and good behaviour. When the Christians returned is not certain. Eusebius says that directly after the destruction of Jerusalem, they assembled together and chose Simeon as their bishop; but he d

To the Arab wanderer on the barren and sun-stricken plains of the Hejjáz the well-watered, fertile land of Syria had always been an object of admiration and envy. As Mohammed the camel-driver sat on the hill which overlooks Damascus, and gazed upon the rich verdure of that garden of the East, his religious phrenzy, his visionary schemes for the unity and regeneration of his race had well-nigh yielded to the voluptuous fascination of the scene. But enthusiasm and ambition triumphed: his eyes fill

At what period in the history of Christianity began the practice of going on pilgrimage it is difficult to decide. Probably the first places held sacred were those of local martyrs and confessors to the faith. Every part of the civilised world had these in abundance; there was not a village where some saint had not fallen a victim to persecution, not a town which could not boast of its roll of martyrs. When the day of persecution was over, and stories of miracles and wonderful cures at holy shri

Peter the Hermit, the preacher and main cause of the first Crusade, was born about the year 1050, of a noble family of Picardy. He was at first, like all men of gentle birth of his time, a soldier, and fought in some at least of the wars that were going on around him. For some cause—no one knows why—perhaps disgusted with the world, perhaps struck with repentance for a criminal or dissolute life—he withdrew from his fellow-men, and became a hermit. But it would seem that his turbulent and unquie

For seven days after the conquest of the city and the massacre of the inhabitants the Crusaders, very naturally, abandoned themselves to rest, feasting, and services of thanksgiving. On the eighth day a council was held to determine the future mode of holding and governing their newly-acquired possessions. At the outset a remonstrance was presented by the priests, jealous as usual of their supremacy, against secular matters being permitted to take the lead of things ecclesiastical, and demanding

“Tell me,” said Don Quixote, “have you ever seen a more valorous knight than I upon the whole face of the known earth?” No sooner was the breath out of Godfrey’s body, than, according to usual custom, the Christians began to quarrel as to who should succeed him. Count Garnier de Gray, a cousin of Godfrey’s, took possession promptly of the Tower of David and other fortified places, and refused to give them up to the patriarch, Dagobert, who claimed them as having been ceded to him by the late kin

As the soldiers bearing the body of King Baldwin entered the city at one gate, his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, Count of Edessa, came in at another. He was in time to be present at the funeral. Immediately afterwards a council was held to determine on his successor. On the one hand, by the laws of succession, and in accordance with the king’s own request, Eustace, his brother, should have been the heir. But Eustace was in France. It would have been many months before he could be brought to Palestin

Fulke, Count of Anjou, born about the year 1092, was thirty-nine years of age at the time when his father-in-law died, and he became, with his wife Milicent, the successor to the throne. He was a man of affable and generous disposition, patient and prudent rather than impetuous, and of great experience and judgment in military operations. He was of small stature—all the previous kings had been tall men—and had red hair; “in spite of which,” says William of Tyre, who regarded red-haired men with

“Seigneurs, je m’en voiz outre mer, et je ne scais se je revendré. Or venez avant: se je vous ai de riens mes fait, je le vous desferai l’un par l’autre, si comme je ai accoutumé à tous ceulz qui vinront riens demander ni à moy ni à ma gent.”— Joinville. “Hitherto,” says William of Tyre, whom we have been principally following, “hitherto the events I have described were related to me by others. All that follows I have either seen with my own eyes or have heard from those who actually were presen

At the death of King Baldwin the personal unpopularity of his brother among the barons caused at first some hesitation as to his election, but this was overruled by the influence of the clergy, and Amaury was duly crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He was at the time of his succession to the crown twenty-seven years of age. He had been named by his brother first Count of Jaffa, and afterwards, when the place was taken, Count of Ascalon. He was a man somewhat above the middle height; li

The only son of Amaury, by his first wife Agnes, daughter of the younger Jocelyn of Edessa, was placed, at the age of nine years, under the charge of William of Tyre. He was a studious bright boy, and at first raised the highest hopes of his future. But his tutor discovered by accident that he was afflicted with that dreadful and incurable disease which was beginning to be so prevalent among the Syrian Christians. In his boyish sports with the children of his own age, his tutor remarked that whe

When the little King Baldwin had been buried, [69] Sybille went to the Patriarch, the Grand Master of the Templars, and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, to ask their advice and assistance. The first two bade her be under no anxiety, because they would procure her coronation, the former out of love for her mother, the Lady Agnes, and the latter out of the great hatred he bore for Raymond of Tripolis. And they advised her to send at once for Renaud de Chatillon, as a man likely to be of great

We are not writing a history of the Crusades, and must hasten over all those episodes in the long struggle of three hundred years which do not immediately concern the Holy City. It is with regret that one turns from the glowing pages of Vinsauf, Villehardouin, and Joinville, with the thought that they have little to do with our subject, and that we must perforce leave them for other pastures, not so fair. [72] But a few words to show the progress of events, if it is only to make us understand th

Saladin has already appeared upon our pages, but hitherto scarcely more than incidentally. The reader will, no doubt, be glad to have a consecutive account of the career of this illustrious prince, as told by the historians of his own nation. We must go back to the time of the invasion of Egypt by King Amaury. On Shírkoh’s death, many of the chief officers of Núr-ed-dín’s army were desirous of succeeding to the important post of grand vizier; but the Caliph, El ‘Άdhid, himself sent for Saladin,

“Proclaim unto the people a solemn pilgrimage; let them come unto thee on foot, and on every lean camel, arriving from every distant road; that they be witnesses of the advantages which accrue from visiting this holy place.”—Cor’án, cap. xxii. vv. 28, 29. There are two kinds of pilgrimage in Islam, the Hajj and the Ziyáreh . The first is the greater pilgrimage to the shrine of Mecca, and this it is absolutely incumbent upon every Muslim to perform once at least in his life. As the injunction is,

The Christian kingdom, reduced after Saladin’s conquest to a strip of land along the coast, with a few strong cities, depended no longer on the annual reinforcement of pilgrims, but on the strength and wealth of the two military orders. Unfortunately these quarrelled, and the whole of Syria became divided, Mohammedans as well as Christians, into partisans of Knights Templars, or of Knights Hospitallers. Henry of Champagne, the titular king, was only anxious to get away, while Bohemond, the Princ

Jerusalem stands upon a tongue of land, bounded on the west by the Valley of Hinnom, and on the east by the Valley of Jehoshaphat, two deep wádies, which, uniting at the southern extremity, under the name of the Kedron, flow down together to the Dead Sea. The promontory thus formed is divided again by a smaller valley, called the Tyropœon, bisecting the city from north to south, and running from the Damascus gate, by the Pool of Siloam, into the Kedron. Two hills, or spurs, thus project from the

There are very many difficulties in the way of a reconstruction of the City of Herod. The course of the second and third walls, the position of Antonia, and even that of the Temple itself, have been made the subject of very keen and bitter controversy; and, coming to later times, the site of Constantine’s buildings on and round the Holy Sepulchre has been assigned to two positions. Without attempting to go thoroughly into the question, which would not only take too much space, but would give thi