Soon after this period, the circumstances of the pilgrims who arrived in the Holy Land were entirely changed, in consequence of the conquests of the Saracens, who, under Omar, obtained possession of Jerusalem in 637, by a capitulation, however, which allowed them the use of their churches on payment of a tribute, but forbade them to build new ones. This interdiction could not be in itself a great grievance, for the whole of Palestine must have been literally covered with churches when it passed under the Mohammedan yoke. The conquerors soon saw that greater advantages would be reaped by preserving the holy places, and encouraging pilgrimage, than by destroying them; many of them, indeed their own creed taught them, were to be considered as objects of reverence; and thus for two or three centuries the Christians of the west continued to flock to the Holy Sepulchre as numerously as before, subject, perhaps, to not much greater taxation at the holy places than in former times, but exposed on their way to more or less insult and oppression, according to the political or local circumstances of the moment.
Not many years after it had thus fallen under the power of the Arabs, the Holy Land was visited by a French bishop named ARCULF, whose narrative stands at the head of the present volume. The French antiquaries have not been able to discover of what see Arculf was bishop, or when he lived; and all that is known of him is the statement of Adamnan, who wrote down his narrative, that on his return from the east he was carried by contrary winds to the shores of Britain, and that he was received at Iona. We learn from Bede[3], that Adamnan visited the court of the Northumbrian king Aldfrid, and that he then presented to the king his book on the Holy Places, which he had taken down from the dictation of bishop Arculf. The visit to king Aldfrid is generally placed in 703, but by an apparent misunderstanding of the words of Bede, and it is probable that it occurred at least as early as 701[4]. The pilgrimage of Arculf must thus have taken place in the latter part of the seventh century. In relating a miracle concerning the _sudarium_ or napkin taken from the head of our Saviour (which has not been thought worth retaining in the present translation), Arculf is made to speak of "Majuvias, king of the Saracens," as having lived in his time[5], and the character of the story leaves no doubt that the king referred to was Moawiyah, the first khalif of the dynasty of the Ommiades, who reigned from 661 to 679. I am inclined to think that Arculf's visit to Jerusalem must be placed not long after this khalif's death.