From an early period pilgrimages to the Holy Land became a ruling passion with the more devout and superstitious. Jerome speaks of the crowds which from all quarters thronged the sacred places. But the supposed discovery of the real sepulcher, the disinterment of the true cross, the magnificent church built over the sepulcher by the devout Helena and her son Constantine, awakened in all classes a wild enthusiasm to visit the Holy Land. From this time (A.D. 326), the stream of pilgrimage continued to flow, and with increasing fullness, down to the period when Jerusalem was captured by the Mahometans, under the Caliph Omar, in 637. The pilgrims had been protected and cared for by the way; they had only to encounter the privations and perils of a long journey. But under the Mahometan government they were prevented from entering the holy city, unless they purchased the privilege by paying tribute to the Caliphs. This being agreed to, the pious soon began to flock in undiminished numbers to perform their devotions at the holy sepulcher.
About the year 1067, a new race of conquerors gained possession of Palestine, who proved to be harder masters than the Saracens. These were the Seljukians, a tribe of Tartars, now familiarly known as the Turks. They came originally from Tartary. They had embraced the Mahometan religion, and were more fanatic Islamites than the Arabian followers of the 'prophet.' But with the intolerant zeal of recent converts to Islam they combined the tyranny and inhumanity of barbarians. Under these new lords of Palestine, the condition of the christian inhabitants and the pilgrims was greatly altered for the worse. In place of being treated as merely tributary subjects, they were despised as slaves, and the pilgrims exposed to severe persecutions.