(_Le Temple de Jerusalem,_ a monograph, pp. 73-75, by
Count Melchior de Vogue, ch. vi.) The Mosque of Omar rose up on the site
of Solomon's temple. The Christians retained the practice of their
religion in their churches, but they were obliged to conceal their
crosses and their sacred books. The bell no longer summoned the faithful
to prayer; and the pomp of ceremonies was forbidden them. It was far
worse when Omar, the most moderate of Mussulman fanatics, had left
Jerusalem. The faithful were driven from their houses, and insulted in
their churches; additions were made to the tribute they had to pay to the
new masters of Palestine; they were prohibited from carrying arms and
riding on horseback; a girdle of leather, which they might not lay aside,
was their badge of servitude; their conquerors brooked not even that the
Christians should speak the Arab tongue, reserved for disciples of the
Koran; and the Christian people of Jerusalem had not the right of
nominating their own patriarch without the intervention of the Saracens.

From the seventh to the eleventh century the situation remained very much
the same. The Mussulmans, khalifs of Egypt or Persia, continued in
possession of Jerusalem; and the Christians, native inhabitants or
foreign visitors, continued to be oppressed, harassed, and humiliated
there. At two periods their condition was temporarily better. At the
commencement of the ninth century, Charlemagne reached even there with
the greatness of his mind and of his power. "It was not only in his own
land and his own kingdom," says Eginhard, "that he scattered those
gratuitous largesses which the Greeks call alms; but beyond the seas, in
Syria, in Egypt, in Africa, at Jerusalem, at Alexandria, at Carthage,
wherever he knew that there were Christians living in poverty, he had
compassion on their misery, and he delighted to send them money." In one
of his capitularies of the year 810 we find this paragraph: "Alms to be
sent to Jerusalem to repair the churches of God." "If Charlemagne was so
careful to seek the friendship of the kings beyond the seas, it was above
all in order to obtain for the Christians living under their rule help
and relief. . . . He kept up so close a friendship with Haroun-al-
Raschid, king of Persia, that this prince preferred his good graces to
the alliance of the sovereigns of the earth. Accordingly, when the
ambassadors whom Charles had sent, with presents, to visit the sacred