hese pilgrims were interfered with by the
Mohammedans and especially by the Seljuk Turks.

The Turks in their blind zeal for Mohammedanism could see nothing in
the Christian belief worthy of respect or even civil treatment. The
persecution of Christians awakened the sympathy of all Europe and
filled the minds of people with resentment against the occupation of
Jerusalem by the Turks. This is one of the earliest indications of the
development of religious toleration, which heralded the development of
a feeling that people should worship whom they pleased unmolested,
though it was like a voice crying in the wilderness, for many centuries
passed before religious toleration could be acknowledged.

There were other considerations which made occasion for the crusades.
Gregory VII preached a crusade to protect Constantinople and unify the
church under one head. But trouble with Henry IV of Germany caused him
to abandon the enterprise. There still dwelt in the minds of the
people an ideal monarchy, as represented by the Roman Empire. It was
considered the type of all good government, the one expression of the
unity of all people. Many dreamed of the return of this empire to its
full temporal sway. It was a species of idealism which lived on
through the Middle Ages long after the {321} Western Empire had passed
into virtual decay. In connection with this idea of a universal empire
controlling the whole world was the idea of a universal religion which
should unite all religious bodies under one common organization. The
centre of this organization was to be the papal authority at Rome.

There dwelt then in the minds of all ecclesiastics this common desire
for the unity of all religious people in one body regardless of
national boundaries. And it must be said that these two ideas had much
to do with giving Europe unity of thought and sentiment. Disintegrated
as it was, deflected and disturbed by a hundred forces, thoughts of a
common religion and of universal empire nevertheless had much to do to
harmonize and unify the people of Europe. Hence, it was when Urban II,
who had inherited all of the great religious improvements instituted by
Gregory VII, preached a crusade to protect Constantinople, on the one
hand, and to deliver Jerusalem, on the other, and made enthusiastic
inflammatory speeches, that Europe awoke like an electric flash. Peter
the Hermit, on the occasion of the first crusade, was employed to
travel thr