A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 by Steven Runciman Read Free Book Online Page B

of a Christian mother and brought up largely by
Christians, suddenly reacted against his early influences. For ten years, from
1004 to 1014, despite the remonstrance’s of the Emperor, he passed ordinances
against the Christians; he began to confiscate Church property, then to burn
crosses and to order little mosques to be built on church roofs, and finally to
bum the churches themselves. In 1009 he ordered the destruction of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre itself, on the ground that the annual miracle of the holy
fire, celebrated there on the eve of Easter, must certainly be an impious
forgery. By 1014 some thirty thousand churches had been burnt or pillaged, and
many Christians had outwardly adopted Islam to save their lives. Similar
measures were taken against the Jews. But it should be noted that the Moslems
were equally liable to arbitrary persecution by the head of their faith; who
continued all the time to employ Christian ministers. In 1013, as a concession to
the Emperor, Christians were allowed to emigrate into Byzantine territory. The
persecution only stopped when Hakim became convinced that he himself was
divine. This divinity was publicly proclaimed in 1016 by his friend Darazi. As
the Moslems were more deeply shocked by this behaviour of their leading
co-religionist than the non-Moslems could be, Hakim began to favour the
Christians and the Jews, while he struck at the Moslems themselves by
forbidding the Ramadan fast and the pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1017 full liberty
of conscience was given to the Christians and the Jews. Soon some six thousand
of the recent apostates returned to the Christian fold. In 1020 the Churches
had their confiscated property restored to them, including the materials taken
from their ruined buildings. At the same time the regulation demanding
distinctive dress was abolished. But by now the fury of the Moslems was aroused
against the Caliph, who had substituted his own name for that of Allah in the
mosque services. Darazi fled to the Lebanon, to found there the sect that is
called the Druzes, after his name. Hakim himself disappeared in 1021. He was
probably murdered by his ambitious sister, Sitt al-Mulk; but his fate remained
and still remains a mystery. The Druzes believe that in due course he will come
again.
    After his death Palestine was held for a while
by the Emir of Aleppo, Salih ibn Mirdas; but the Fatimid rule was fully
restored in 1029. In 1027 a treaty had already been signed permitting the
Emperor Constantine VIII to undertake the restoration of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, and allowing the remaining apostates to return unpenalized to
Christianity. The treaty was renewed in 1036; but the actual work of rebuilding
the church was only carried out some ten years later, by the Emperor
Constantine IX. To supervise the work imperial officials voyaged freely to
Jerusalem; where to the disgust of Moslem citizens and travellers the
Christians seemed to be in complete control. So many Byzantines were to be seen
in its streets that the rumour arose amongst the Moslems that the Emperor
himself had made the journey. There was a prosperous colony of Amalfitan
merchants protected by the Caliph but also protesting the vassaldom of their
Italian home-city to the Emperor, in order to share in the privileges shown to
his subjects. Fear of Byzantine power kept the Christians safe. The Persian
traveller, Nasir-i-Khusrau, who visited Tripoli in 1047, describes the number
of Greek merchant ships to be seen in the harbour there and the fear of the
inhabitants of an attack by the Byzantine navy.
     
    The Prosperity
of the Christians
    In the middle of the eleventh century the lot
of the Christians in Palestine had seldom been so pleasant. The Moslem
authorities were lenient; the Emperor was watchful of their interests. Trade
was prospering and increasing with the Christian countries overseas. And never
before had Jerusalem enjoyed so plentifully the sympathy and the wealth that
were brought to