Martel gained, at Poitiers, the victory
for the Cross. It was really a definitive victory, and yet it did not
end the struggle; the Mussulmans remained masters in Spain, and continued
to infest Southern France, Italy, and Sicily, preserving even, at certain
points, posts which they used as starting-points for distant ravages.
Far then from calming down and resulting in pacific relations, the
hostility between the two races became more and more active and
determined; everywhere they opposed, fought, and oppressed one another,
inflamed one against the other by the double feelings of faith and
ambition, hatred and fear. To this general state of affairs came to be
added, about the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century,
incidents best calculated to aggravate the evil. Hakem, khalif of Egypt
from 996 to 1021, persecuted the Christians, especially at Jerusalem,
with all the violence of a fanatic and all the capriciousness of a
despot. He ordered them to wear upon their necks a wooden cross five
pounds in weight; he forbade them to ride on any animal but mules or
asses; and, without assigning any motive for his acts, he confiscated
their goods and carried off their children. It was told to him one day
that, when the Christians assembled in the temple at Jerusalem to
celebrate Easter, the priests of the church rubbed balsam-oil upon the
iron chain which held up the lamp over the tomb of Christ, and afterwards
set fire, from the roof, to the end of the chain; the fire stole down to
the wick of the lamp and lighted it; then they shouted with admiration,
as if fire from heaven had come down upon the tomb, and they glorified
their faith. Hakem ordered the instant demolition of the church of the
Holy Sepulchre, and it was accordingly demolished. Another time a dead
dog had been laid at the door of a mosque; and the multitude accused the
Christians of this insult. Hakem ordered them all to be put to death.
The soldiers were preparing to execute the order when a young Christian
said to his friends, "It were too grievous that the whole Church should
perish; it were better that one should die for all; only promise to bless
my memory year by year." He proclaimed himself alone to blame for the
insult, and was accordingly alone put to death. It is from this story of
the historian William of Tyre, that Tasso, in his _Jerusalem Delivered,_
has drawn the admirable episode of Olindo and Sophronia; a fine example,
and n