Towards the close of the tenth century, a false interpretation of a passage in the Gospels, according to which the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ in Judea had been fixed for the year one thousand, had struck all Christendom with stupor and affright. “The end of the world being at hand,” were the opening words of all deeds and contracts; and the vanities of the world being forgotten in the near approach of the “supreme and inevitable catastrophe,” every one was anxious to start for the Holy Land, in the hope of being present at the coming of the Saviour, and of finding there pardon for their sins, a peaceful death, and the salvation of his soul. The immense crowd of pilgrims, according to another historian of the Crusades, Glaber the monk, was far greater than religious devotion alone could possibly account for. The first to come were the poor and the working classes, and then counts, barons, and princes, who no longer attached any value to the possessions of this world. And further, as if the miraculous influence of this grand religious manifestation had inspired the infidels themselves with admiration and awe, the cruelties and the persecutions inflicted upon the Christians in Palestine suddenly ceased. When the dreaded epoch had passed away, and no perceptible disturbance had occurred in the laws of the universe, when each successive day had lessened the fears and increased the courage of the Western Church, the Holy Land remained open to pilgrims, who came in swarms to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for having a second time saved the world. But all this was merely a kind of tacit truce granted to the children of Christ by the unbelievers, who had sworn to destroy the religion of the cross, and to establish in its place the creed of Mohamet. The East, moreover, was about to change masters. The Turks, an Asiatic nomadic people, sprung from the countries beyond the Oxus, had conquered Persia, and had thence borne their triumphant arms towards Syria and the banks of the Nile. This rapid conquest included Judea, and was signalized by horrible excesses. No quarter was given either to the followers of Moses, to those of Jesus, or to the disciples of the Prophet. The same blow fell upon the Jewish synagogues, the Mussulman mosques, and the Catholic churches. Jerusalem was steeped in blood. Deprived of their property, groaning under a bitter and humiliating yoke, says a contemporary historian, the Christians suffered as they had never suffered before.