The two hundred years which cover, roughly speaking, the actual period of the Holy War, are crammed with an interest that never grows dim. Gallant figures, noble knights, generous foes, valiant women, eager children, follow one another through these centuries, and form a pageant the colour and romance of which can never fade, for the circumstances were in themselves unique. The two great religious forces of the world—Christianity and Islam, the Cross and the Crescent—were at grips with one another, and for the first time the stately East, with its suggestion of mystery, was face to face with the brilliant West, wherein the civilisation and organisation of Rome were at last prevailing over the chaos of the Dark Ages.
A very special kind of interest, moreover, belongs to the story of the Crusades in that the motive of the wars was the desire to rescue from the hands of unbelievers
Those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred year before, were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But we shall see, as we read the story, that this was only a part of the real motive power which inspired and sustained the Holy War.
Even if the land of Palestine and the Holy City, Jerusalem, had never fallen into the hands of the Saracens, some such war was inevitable. The East was knocking at the doors of the West with no uncertain sound. An extraordinary force had come into existence during the four centuries that immediately preceded the First Crusade, which threatened to dominate the whole of the Western world. It was a religious force—always stronger and more effective than any other; and it was only repelled with the greatest difficulty by Christendom, inspired, not so much by the motive of religion, as by that curious mixture of romance and adventurous design which we call chivalry.
Let us try, then, first of all, to get some idea of these Men of the East, the Mohammedans or Saracens, who managed to keep Europe in a state of constant turmoil for upwards of five centuries, and to do that we must go back to the latter years of the sixth century after Christ.
About fifty miles from the shores of the Red Sea stands the city of Mecca, one of the few important towns to be found on the fringe of the great sandy desert of Arabia. During hundreds of years Mecca had been the venerated bourne of pilgrims, for, embedded in the walls of the sacred building known as the Kaaba, was the "pure white stone," said to have fallen from heaven on the day that Adam and Eve took their sorrowful way from the gates of Paradise.
The Arabs, or Saracens, of these early days were closely connected with their neighbours, the Jews of Palestine, and claimed the same descent from Abraham through Ishmael, the outcast son. They believed in the existence of God, whom, to some extent, they worshipped, under the name of Allah. But they were deeply interested in nature-worship: the sun, moon, and stars were their deities. They bowed down before the "pure white stone" in the Kaaba, now from its frequent handling rather black than white. They peopled the whole realm of nature—oceans, rivers, mountains, caves—with spirits good and evil, called "jinns" or genii, made, not of clay, like mortal men, but of pure flame of fire.
Once upon a time these jinns were said to have lived in heaven, and to have worshipped the Lord of Hosts; but having rebelled, under the leadership of Iblis, against Allah, they were cast forth, and descended to the earth, where they became sometimes a pest and annoyance to men, and sometimes their servants.
Many legends concerning these spirits are to be found in the Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans. One of these tells how the jinns were wont to roam round about the gates of heaven, peeping and listening and catching here and there a little of the converse of the angels. But these were only isolated words, or disjointed phrases; and the mischievous jinns, hoping that evil would come of these odds and ends of conversation separated from their context, whispered them industriously in the ears of the sons of men. These the latter, always eager to know more of the Unseen World, readily accepted, and invariably put a wrong interpretation upon them. Hence arose superstition, black magic, false prophecies, evil omens, and all such things as had in them the germ of truth, but had been misunderstood and misapplied.