ʾAbbas), from the capital of the latter at Baghdad. But the distant ʾAbbasid Khalifs never held the allegiance of Syria and Palestine as did the Omayyads, and the process of disintegration commenced in the Arab Empire. By the middle or end of the ninth century Palestine and Syria stand once more apart in their accustomed relation to Egypt on the south and to the rulers of Mesopotamia on the north-east. In 969 the Fatimite Khalifs began to rule over Egypt and soon conquered Syria and Palestine. In the eleventh century they were followed by the Seljuq Turks. In the latter half of the tenth century, however, the Byzantine Emperors had undertaken no fewer than four invasions of Syria and Northern Palestine (in 975 the Emperor John Zimisces actually reached Tiberias and Acre); and these invasions, coupled with the internal dissensions of the Arab Empire, paved the way for the Crusaders.
§ 5. The Crusades.
The First Crusade.—The Crusades, considered as a conquest of Palestine, were marked by several unique features. They were, in the first place, the product of artificial co-operation between a number of Western Powers, which was only maintained with difficulty and frequently broke down altogether. Its promoters were actuated by a variety of motives: religious, romantic, dynastic, commercial. The Crusaders proceeded with their task slowly and intermittently, and their purpose, which was to plant western feudalism in an eastern land, never wholly succeeded. From the date of their first success the Crusaders organized their conquests into four independent states, the Principality of Antioch, the Counties of Tripoli and Edessa, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is only with the last of these that the Handbook of Palestine is directly concerned.
The First Crusade aimed not merely at the deliverance of the Holy City from Moslem rule or even only at the conquest of Palestine and Syria; rather was it an expedition by the Christians of Western Europe, under the auspices of Western
