As this distant pilgrimage could not be performed without considerable expense, fatigue, and danger, it appeared the more meritorious, and came to be considered as an expiation for almost every crime. An opinion which spread with rapidity over Europe, about the close of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, and which gained universal credit, wonderfully augmented the number of credulous pilgrims, and increased the ardour with which they undertook this useless voyage. The thousand years, mentioned by St. John in the twentieth chapter of Revelations, were supposed to be accomplished, and the end of the world to be at hand. A general consternation seized mankind: many relinquished their possessions; and abandoning their friends and families, hurried with precipitation to the Holy Land, where they imagined that Christ would quickly appear to judge the world. This belief was so universal, and so strong, that it mingled itself with civil transactions. Many charters, in the latter part of the tenth century, began in this manner: “Appropinquante mundi termino,” &c.--“as the end of the world is now at hand, and by various calamities and judgments the signs of its approach are now manifest.” While Palestine continued subject to the caliphs, they had encouraged the resort of pilgrims to Jerusalem; and considered this as a beneficial species of commerce, which brought into their dominions gold and silver, and carried nothing out of them but relics and consecrated trinkets. But the Turks having conquered Syria, about the middle of the eleventh century, pilgrims were exposed to outrages of every kind from these fierce barbarians. This change, happening precisely at the juncture when the panic terror above mentioned rendered pilgrimages most frequent, filled Europe with alarm and indignation. Every person who returned from Palestine related the dangers which he had encountered in visiting the holy city, and described with exaggeration the cruelty and vexations of the Turks.