PROGRESS OF THE SELJUKS. ' 41 fraudulent discovery of the holy lance, or, according to other accounts, one of the nails which pierced our Lord, and oh- tained a great victory. A hundred thousand Turks arc said to have been slain. The enemy's camp and baggage was capt- ured, and the Turkish general himself was killed. A year afterwards — namely, in 1099 — Jerusalem was taken by as- sault. Thus by the army of the First Crusade, as well as by the troops of the Eastern empire, the Turks had been bers recruited scriously defeated. Victories had been fj^ained over after every , i • i i t . defeat by new tlicm which, uudcr ordmary circumstances, would have been decisive. Three large armies had been destroyed ; but every defeat was followed by a new ad- vance of the enemy. Central Asia was always pouring in a new supply of recruits ready to fight for Islam and the plun- der of the New Rome. As it was in the eleventh century, so, also, it continued to be during the twelfth. The first eighty years of the century was an almost uninterrupted pe- riod of war between the empire and the Turks. The supe- rior discipline and civilization of the empire gave them on many occasions the advantage. The Greek accounts of victo- ries may fairly be looked on with suspicion ; but Armenian and Moslem historians relate many defeats inflicted on the Mahometans. Meantime the lands in Asia Minor were falling out of cul- tivation, or were being occupied by the invaders. That which liad been a mere conquest in the eleventh century became a devastation or a settlement in the twelfth. Cities, which at the beginning of the century had been populous, well built, and prosperous, were in numberless instances falling into ruins, while the inhabitants had been ruthlessly slaughtered.* The war, like most religious wars, even when religious fanati- cism is only present on one side, had become one of great cru- elty. Quarter was rareh^ asked or given. The imperial ar- mies were fighting for their homes and lives, the Turks for Islam and plunder. ^ Nicetas, xiv. ; Alexis, c. i.
