Some laughed at her and said, “With your spindle legs, you want to become a tree, O bird, with a mind capacious as the sea.” The lark replied, “I am doing what I can.” At the end of the eleventh century, chronicles and histories were written in ancient Armenian (Grabar), but there was also a language of the people, in which books for popular use, such as collections of medical recipes, began to be written at this period, as well as songs. When the country again lost its independence many migrations took place. It was not only peasants and citizens who migrated; some of the nobles also sought more secure dwelling places in mountainous districts. The majority of these settled in the region of the Taurus Mountains, and there the emigrants multiplied to such an extent that they equalled the Greeks in number. In their new home they built many churches and abbeys, where they educated the boys of the settlement. Soon they established a number of villages and small towns, and the princes set up fortresses. The Byzantine emperors rather encouraged this progress, as they thought that the existence of small buffer-states on their frontier would serve as a barrier against the attacks of Mohammedan countries. One of these princes, Rubin by name, established himself there in 1080. He chose an impregnable stronghold, and the Armenians of the neighbourhood came and put themselves under his protection. Other Armenian princes, settled in the surrounding districts, adopted him as their chief. Having concentrated and strengthened his power, he ruled his little realm—which was called, after him, the Rubinian Principality—with great wisdom for fifteen years. He was succeeded by his son, Constantine, in 1095. Constantine extended his dominions by taking some almost impregnable fortresses from the Greeks. During his reign many Europeans began to come, with their armies, to the East. They wore the badge of the cross on their arms, and were therefore called “Crusaders.” They cleared Palestine and Syria of Mohammedans and set up new Christian principalities in those countries. The Armenians called these strangers “Latins” because they were all Catholics of the Roman Church. Constantine rendered great services to the Crusaders by furnishing them with guides, providing them with provisions, etc., and the European princes, as an acknowledgment, conferred on him the title of “marquis.”