384 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap. who, accused him. But being worsted in the;v. combat, he was condemned to be castrated, and :

1095. to have his eyes put out. William de Alderi , 1

another conspirator, was supposed to be treatedwith more rigor, when he was sentenced tobe hanged. j

The Cm- But the noise os these petty wars and com- ]3 ' motions was quite funk in the tumult of the j

Crusades, which now engrossed the attention of-;Europe, and have ever since engaged the curiosityof mankind , as the most signal and most durable 1monument of human folly, that has yet appeared 1in any age or nation. After Mahomet had , bymeans of his pretended revelations, united thedispersed Arabians under one head, they issuedforth from their desarts in great multitudes ; andbeing animated with zeal for their new religion,and supported by the vigor of their newgovernment , they made deep impression on theeastern empire, which was far in the decline,with regard both to military discipline and tocivil policy. Jerusalem, by its situation , becameone of their most early conquests ; and theChristians had the mortification to fee the holysepulchre, and the other places, consecrated bythe presence of their religious sounder, fallen intothe possession of infidels. But the Arabians orSaracens were so employed in military enterprizes,by which they spread their empire, in a fewyears, from the banks of the Ganges, to theStreights of Gibraltar, that they had no leisurefor theological controversy : And though the

Alcoran,