at they had no leisure for theological controversy: and
though the Alcoran, the original monument of their faith, seems to
contain some violent precepts, they were much less infected with the
spirit of bigotry and persecution than the indolent and speculative
Greeks, who were continually refining on the several articles of their
religious system. They gave little disturbance to those zealous
pilgrims, who daily flocked to Jerusalem; and they allowed every man,
after paying a moderate tribute, to visit the holy sepulchre, to perform
his religious duties, and to return in peace. But the Turcomans or
Turks, a tribe of Tartars, who had embraced Mahometanism, having wrested
Syria from the Saracens, and having, in the year 1065, made themselves
masters of Jerusalem, rendered the pilgrimage much more difficult and
dangerous to the Christians. The barbarity of their manners, and the
confusions attending their unsettled government, exposed the pilgrims to
many insults, robberies, and extortions: and these zealots, returning
from their meritorious fatigues and sufferings, filled all Christendom
with indignation against the infidels, who profaned the holy city by
their presence, and derided the sacred mysteries in the very place of
their completion. Gregory VII., among the other vast ideas which he
entertained, had formed the design of uniting all the Western Christians
against the Mahometans; but the egregious and violent invasions of that
pontiff on the civil power of princes, had created him so many enemies,
and had rendered his schemes so suspicious, that he was not able to make
great progress in this undertaking. The work was reserved for a meaner
instrument, whose low condition in life exposed him to no jealousy, and
whose folly was well calculated to coincide with the prevailing
principles of the times.

Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens in Picardy, had
made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Being deeply affected with the dangers
to which that act of piety now exposed the pilgrims, as well as with the
instances of oppression under which the Eastern Christians labored, he
entertained the bold, and, in all appearance, impracticable project of
leading into Asia, from the farthest extremities of the West, armies
sufficient to subdue those potent and warlike nations which now held the
holy city in subjection. He proposed his views to Martin II., who filled
the papal chair, and who, though sensible of the advantages