Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/269

Rh feats of chivalry that adorned these quaint wars fought on its own soil. Too often it was the victim of their disastrous consequences. What did the Crusades mean to the Eastern Church? Did they bring it liberation, security, prosperity? That is the question which forces itself upon us when we plant ourselves in imagination at Constantinople or Antioch, at Tyre or Jerusalem, and watch the sanguinary fights of Latins and Teutons with Turks and Saracens.

If we would take a broad view of the situation, we must not be satisfied to regard the Crusades either as mere freaks of fanaticism, or as only European police manoeuvres for the protection of pilgrims. Their immediate object was recovery of the sacred sites of Palestine from desecration by the infidels, and their direct provocation was the ill-treatment at times endured by people who visited those sacred sites. Palmers' tales told by the fireside and in the market-place stirred the minds of men in the towns and villages of Europe. But when we orientate the whole movement we see that these wars take their place in the age-long conflict between Islam and Christendom. That conflict began in the seventh century when Mohammed started on his conquering career; it will not cease till the cross is seen again on the dome of St. Sophia in place of the usurping crescent, till the last Turkish sultan is dethroned, and the last Turkish pasha dismissed. Nevertheless these strange enterprises had their own peculiar features, which happily are without parallel in history; for the world has never seen less wisdom or greater incompetence, attended by more waste of life and deeper misery, in proportion to the purpose pursued and the end accomplished.

In their actual inception the Crusades sprang from the pilgrimages. As early as the fourth century a continuous stream of immigrants from Western Europe was pouring into Palestine. Some came and went, like the modern tourists; others remained to live and die in the Holy Land. When Jerome settled down for life in a cave at Bethlehem, the fame of so eminent a man induced many to follow his example. Under his influence Paula came from Rome, and