mould from the hill of the Crucifixion, were brought home, and sold at
extravagant prices to churches and monasteries. More apocryphical
relics, such as the wood of the true cross, the tears of the Virgin
Mary, the hems of her garments, the toe-nails and hair of the Apostles
-- even the tents that Paul had helped to manufacture -- were
exhibited for sale by the knavish in Palestine, and brought back to
Europe "with wondrous cost and care." A grove of a hundred oaks would
not have furnished all the wood sold in little morsels as remnants of
the true cross; and the tears of Mary, if collected together, would
have filled a cistern.

For upwards of two hundred years the pilgrims met with no
impediment in Palestine. The enlightened Haroun Al Reschid, and his
more immediate successors, encouraged the stream which brought so much
wealth into Syria, and treated the wayfarers with the utmost courtesy.
The race of Fatemite caliphs, -- who, although in other respects as
tolerant, were more distressed for money, or more unscrupulous in
obtaining it, than their predecessors of the house of Abbas, --
imposed a tax of a bezant for each pilgrim that entered Jerusalem.
This was a serious hardship upon the poorer sort, who had begged their
weary way across Europe, and arrived at the bourne of all their hopes
without a coin. A great outcry was immediately raised, but still the
tax was rigorously levied. The pilgrims unable to pay were compelled
to remain at the gate of the holy city until some rich devotee
arriving with his train, paid the tax and let them in. Robert of
Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, who, in common with many
other nobles of the highest rank, undertook the pilgrimage, found on
his arrival scores of pilgrims at the gate, anxiously expecting his
coming to pay the tax for them. Upon no occasion was such a boon
refused.