Pilgrims in any age expect a certain degree of danger from brigands and robbers. But the hostility of the Muslims who lived in and around the new crusader states was more than merely opportunistic. The losses their people had suffered from the first appearance of the Franks in 1096 were considered shameful and perplexing—a sign of God’s displeasure at divisions in the Muslim world and a call to all the faithful to rise in arms to fight back against the invaders.
