The news of these events threw all Christian Europe into consternation, and excited every where the desire for vengeance on the infidels; but it increased the eagerness for pilgrimage, and, in spite of all the insults and perils to which they were exposed, devotees of all ranks and conditions made their way to Jerusalem in crowds. New revolutions were, however, taking place there; for another people, the Seldjouk Turks, having rendered themselves masters of Persia, and established there a new dynasty of monarchs, the Abassides, passed forwards into Mesopotamia, and then conquered Syria from the Fatimites. The Seldjouks took Jerusalem in 1071, massacred both Saracens and Christians, and delivered up to pillagers the mosques as well as the churches. The fate of the pilgrims under the new rulers of Palestine was more deplorable than ever. They were not allowed to enter the gates of Jerusalem without payment of a very heavy tax; and, as most of them had been plundered on the way, if they had anything to tempt the merciless rapacity of the infidels, the greater part remained outside, to perish by hunger or by the sword. Those who gained admission into the city only entered to suffer new outrages, and, which was still worse, to see everything they held most sacred trodden under foot and defiled by unbelievers. The Turks, in their turn, became divided and enfeebled; and the Fatimites made a successful effort to recover their power in Syria. In 1096 Jerusalem was delivered, by capitulation, to the general of the khalif Al-Mostaali-Billeh; but the change of masters seems to have ameliorated in no degree the condition of the Christians. The cry of the eastern Christians had, however, already made itself effectually heard throughout Europe. The voice of Peter the Hermit was first raised in 1095, in the November of which year he stood by the pope, Urban II., at the council of Clermont, and the first crusade was proclaimed. The vast army of invaders assembled in the autumn of 1096, traversed Europe and Asia Minor, and those who escaped from the terrible sufferings and losses it experienced on the road reached Palestine in 1099, and took Jerusalem by assault on the 15th of June. Ten days after the conquerors elected Godfrey of Boulogne king of Jerusalem.