TR E KNIGHTS TEMP-LAHS. 3 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 Hock. The pilgrims who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of the Holy City, were plundered, imprisoned, and frequently massacred ; an aureus,or 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 melancholy intelligence of the profanation of the holy places, and of the oppression and cruelty of the Turcomans, aroused the religions 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 ; 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, with the passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of the « Will. Tyr„ lib. i. cap. 1«, ed. 15«. η 2