The Latin nations were still half savage, and the masses lived in fear of Hell, of the Last Day, and of the Pope--fears which were alike inculcated by their priests. It was expected that the world would come to an end in the year 1000 after the Nativity,[494] and wills and legal documents of the tenth century begin with the words “Appropinquante etenim mundi termino, et ruinis crescentibus jam certa signa manifestantur, pertimescens tremendi judicii diem.” Though the year passed without fulfilment of these fears, the idea of immediate ending of earthly history continued to be a real motive of action even at the close of the twelfth century, when Geoffrey de Vinsauf says that the world “waxes old.” The pilgrim received remission of his sins at the holy places, and if he died at Jerusalem he was ready to appear in the “Valley of Decision” on the day of doom. Jerusalem, which then measured nearly a third of a square mile in area, seems a small town to us, but to the pilgrims from the West it must have appeared large and magnificent, though Damascus and Constantinople were much larger. In the middle of the twelfth century Winchester, as the capital of England, under king Stephen, was only a third of the size of the Holy City; and though the beauties of the Ḥaram buildings could not be seen, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with its mosaics, its lamps of gold and silver, and many other gifts of princes, must have impressed the wild Normans with a sense of Oriental wealth. The Norsemen who accompanied Sigurd, soon after Jerusalem was taken by Godfrey, scorned to show their astonishment at the civilisation of Asia, yet even the smaller town of Sidon was a prize, as Halldor Skualldre sang. “He who for wolves provides a feast Seized on the city of the East, The heathen’s nest; and honour drew, And gold for gifts, from those he slew.” [Sidenote: LATIN PILGRIMS] After the completion of the new churches, in 1048 A. D., crowds of pilgrims came rejoicing to see them, as Roderick Glaber (“the bald”) relates: “And then from all the world an incredible multitude of men entered Jerusalem, with exultation, bringing gifts for the restoration of the house of God.” Yet earlier, in 1033, he says, “An innumerable multitude began to flow together to the Saviour’s tomb at Jerusalem, whom none might hope to number. First the class of the lower people, then the middle class, afterwards the greatest--kings, counts, and nobles--lastly, which had never happened before, many women, noble and poor, arrived there. Many, indeed, desired at heart to die before they went home.”