This brief consideration of the struggle between Cross and Crescent
may serve to indicate the importance of the revival of Islam, which
took place between the Second and Third Crusades, at the time when
Benjamin wrote his Itinerary.



II. THE OBJECT OF BENJAMIN'S JOURNEY.


We may ask what induced Benjamin to undertake his travels? What object
or mission was he carrying out?

It must be explained that the Jew in the Middle Ages was much given to
travel. He was the Wandering Jew, who kept up communications between
one country and another. He had a natural aptitude for trade and
travel. His people were scattered to the four corners of the earth. As
we can see from Benjamin's Itinerary, there was scarcely a city of
importance where Jews could not be found. In the sacred tongue they
possessed a common language, and wherever they went they could rely
upon a hospitable reception from their co-religionists. Travelling
was, therefore, to them comparatively easy, and the bond of common
interest always supplied a motive. Like Joseph, the traveller would be
dispatched with the injunction: "I pray thee see whether it be well
with thy brethren, and bring me word again."

If this was the case in times when toleration and protection were
extended to the Jews, how much stronger must have grown the desire for
intercommunication at the time of the Crusades. The most prosperous
communities in Germany and the Jewish congregations that lay along the