The growth of the Seljukian power again stopped the flow of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. Here as elsewhere the Turkish period of conquest marked the beginning of the worst of evils for the once Christian lands of the East. Asia Minor, the centre of the East Roman Empire, became a desolate waste ruled by Turkish plunderers. In 1076 the expulsion of the Fatimites from Jerusalem left the custody of the holy city to the Turks. The legend of Peter the Hermit expresses the indignation of western Europe when the few wanderers who got back told terrible tales of wrongs suffered and blasphemies witnessed from the infidel lords of the Sepulchre of Christ. [Sidenote: Causes of the First Crusade.] But the stories of pilgrims, though they did much to kindle the indignation of Europe against Turkish rule in Palestine, did not of themselves account for the movement to redeem it. The preaching of Peter the Hermit, fruitful though it was, is not in authentic history the cause of the First Crusade. The Crusades were the work of the Popes at the instigation of the Eastern Emperor. [Sidenote: The East and the West at the end of the eleventh century.] Though, after the death of Malek Shah, the Seljukian monarchy split up into many rival powers, the danger of Turkish advance was still great. The direct rule of the Seljuks was henceforth limited to Persia, while Sultans of Seljukian blood established themselves lords of Kerman, Syria, and Roum. The Seljuks of Syria now ruled the Holy Sepulchre. The descendants of Suleiman, the conqueror of Nicæa, carved out a separate power in the inland parts of Asia Minor, called the kingdom of Roum [_i.e._ Rome], whose capital Nicæa was not one hundred miles from Constantinople, and whose limits extended to the waters of the Sea of Marmora. Some fragments of the Armenian race profited by this break-up to re-establish their freedom in the mountains of the Taurus. But Kilidj Arslan, the Sultan of Roum, was almost as threatening to Alexius as Alp Arslan had been to earlier Emperors. Fear of the lords of Nicæa, rather than a zeal for the holy places, led Alexius to apply for help to the West, and rouse the Westerns to defend the Greek Empire, by dwelling on the desolation of Jerusalem.