able to form some ideas of the state both of
Asia Minor and of a Christian pilgrimage, under the dominion of the
Turks. You may recollect, then, that Alp Arslan, the second Seljukian
Sultan, invaded Asia Minor, and made prisoner the Greek Emperor. This
Sultan came to the throne in 1062, and appears to have begun his warlike
operations immediately. The next year, or the next but one, a body of
pilgrims, to the number of 7,000, were pursuing their peaceful way to
Jerusalem, by a route which at that time lay entirely through countries
professing Christianity.[43] The pious company was headed by the
Archbishop of Mentz, the Bishops of Utrecht, Bamberg, and Ratisbon, and,
among others, by a party of Norman soldiers and clerks, belonging to the
household of William Duke of Normandy, who made himself, very soon
afterwards, our William the Conqueror. Among these clerks was the
celebrated Benedictine Monk Ingulphus, William's secretary, afterwards
Abbot of Croyland in Lincolnshire, being at that time a little more than
thirty years of age. They passed through Germany and Hungary to
Constantinople, and thence by the southern coast of Asia Minor or
Anatolia, to Syria and Palestine. When they got on the confines of Asia
Minor towards Cilicia, they fell in with the savage Turcomans, who were
attracted by the treasure, which these noble persons and wealthy
churchmen had brought with them for pious purposes and imprudently
displayed. Ingulphus's words are few, but so graphic that I require an
apology for using them. He says then, they were "exenterated" or
"cleaned out of the immense sums of money they carried with them,
together with the loss of many lives."

A contemporary historian gives us fuller particulars of the adventure,
and he too appears to have been a party to the expedition.[44] It seems
the prelates celebrated the rites of the Church with great
magnificence, as they went along, and travelled with a pomp which became
great dignitaries. The Turcomans in consequence set on them, overwhelmed
them, stripped them to the skin, and left the Bishop of Utrecht disabled
and half dead upon the field. The poor sufferers effected their retreat
to a village, where they fortified an enclosure and took possession of a
building which stood within it. Here they defended themselves
courageously for as many as three days, though they are said to have had
nothing to eat. At the end of that time they expressed a wish to
surrender themselves t