Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/370

 320 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE East, and the population remained for the most part native Population Syrian Christians and Moslems. Some of the fensewnili- newcomers intermarried with the natives. Pil- tary orders grims arrived in goodly numbers every year, and would perhaps tarry to fight for a year or two, but seldom stayed for long. Indeed, it was difficult to get enough troops, and the king made much use of native cavalry. Two new religious orders, however, whose members took monas- tic vows but whose chief business was to fight, were estab- lished for the defense of the Holy Land ; namely, the Knights Hospitalers, or "Poor Brethren of the Hospital of St. John at Jerusalem," — originally a sort of medieval Red Cross organization, — and the Knights Templars, or Knights of the Temple. Magnificent fortresses, whose remains are still visible, were constructed both by the members of these two orders and by the other crusaders in Syria. The new lords of the land soon lost their bloodthirsty attitude toward the Mohammedans, and made little dis- Attit d tinction of race or creed in their government, toward The coinage of the Kingdom of Jerusalem imi- tated the Arabic even to the extent of retaining verses from the Koran, until the pope forbade this. The Westerners soon adopted Oriental dress and ways. They employed Mohammedan agricultural laborers, physicians, and dancing-girls. They sometimes formed alliances with Moslems against one another, like the Christian states of the Spanish peninsula. They often came to prefer to live on terms of peace and commercial intercourse with their Mohammedan neighbors, and so did not always cooperate heartily with, nor cordially welcome, the new pilgrims and crusaders who came out eager to slaughter Paynims. These Latin states in Syria were not to be a permanent possession of Europeans. In 1144 the Mohammedans cap- Fall of tured Edessa. St. Bernard took the lead in preach - th/second m £ a crusade to counteract this, and Louis VII Crusade and Conrad III, Kings of France and Germany, took the cross. Their armies started separately and were almost annihilated in traversing Asm Minor; the remnants