travellers, sick people, and mendicants of all nations; the foundations whereof, composed of handsome Roman masonry, are still visible on either side of the southern end of the building. On the conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems, this venerable church was converted into a mosque, and was called _D'jamé al Acsa_; it was enclosed, together with the great Mussulman Temple of the Lord erected by the Caliph Omar, within a large area by a high stone wall, which runs around the edge of the summit of Mount Moriah, and guards from the profane tread of the unbeliever the whole of that sacred ground whereon once stood the gorgeous temple of the wisest of kings.[11] When the Holy City was taken by the crusaders, the _D'jamé al Acsa_, with the various buildings constructed around it, became the property of the kings of Jerusalem; and is denominated by William of Tyre "the palace," or "royal house to the south of the Temple of the Lord, vulgarly called _the Temple of Solomon_."[12] It was this edifice or temple on Mount Moriah which was appropriated to the use of the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ, as they had no _church_ and no particular place of abode, and from it they derived their name of Knights Templars.[13] James of Vitry, Bishop of Acre, who gives an interesting account of the holy places, thus speaks of the Temple of the Knights Templars. "There is, moreover, at Jerusalem another temple of immense spaciousness and extent, from which the brethren of the knighthood of the Temple derive their name of Templars, which is called the Temple of Solomon, perhaps to distinguish it from the one above described, which is specially called the Temple of the Lord."[14] He moreover informs us in his oriental history, that "in the Temple of the Lord there is an abbot and canons regular; and be it known that the one is the Temple of the _Lord_, and the other the Temple of the _Chivalry_. These are _clerks_, the others are _knights_."[15] The canons of the Temple of the Lord conceded to the poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ the large court extending between that building and the Temple of Solomon; the king, the patriarch, and the prelates of Jerusalem, and the barons of the Latin kingdom, assigned them various gifts and revenues for their maintenance and support,[16] and the order being now settled in a regular place of abode, the knights soon began to entertain more extended views, and to seek a larger theatre for the exercise of their holy profession.