conquered Syria about the year 980. The pilgrims were robbed, beaten,
and sometimes slain on their journey, the Christian residents
oppressed by heavy impositions, and their feelings outraged by insults
against their religion. These sufferings were slight, however,
compared with those which they endured after the invasion and conquest
of Palestine by the Turkish hordes in 1065. But recently converted to
Moslemism, and therefore more rude and fanatical than the other
Mohammedans, these Turks wreaked their vengeance on all
alike--Christians, Jews, and even the native Mohammedans.

5. The news of the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks produced a deep
sensation over the whole of Christendom, as well among the Latin
Christians as among the Greek Christians, the name given to the
population of what remained of the old Byzantine Empire. The latter
had reason to dread that, if the Turks were not checked,
Constantinople, their capital, would soon share the same fate as
Jerusalem. Accordingly, about the year 1073, the Greek Emperor, Manuel
VII, sent to supplicate the assistance of the great Pope Gregory VII
against the Turks. Till now there had prevailed a spirit of antagonism
between the Greek and Latin churches, the former refusing to yield
obedience to the pope of the West as the universal head of the Church.
Gregory, therefore, eagerly received the application of the Greek
Emperor, seeing the promise of the final subjection of the Greek to
the Latin Church. He resolved to give the enterprise his countenance,
and to march himself at the head of an army to rescue the Holy
Sepulchre.

6. Gregory was prevented from ever carrying out his design, and the
idea of a crusade gradually died away. Meanwhile, the Turks extended
their victories at the expense of the Greek Empire. Before the