foreigners and barbarians: The Islamic World 461 come and live there under a charter based on that of Magdeburg, Germany; he even forbade Slavic peasants from nearby villages to become burgesses Many eastern European cities developed German-speaking communities, with their own schools, churches, and sometimes law courts, that lasted right into modern times Mediterranean port cities, like Venice and Genoa in Italy, Marseille in France, and Barcelona in Spain, were accustomed to foreigners of all sorts passing through, and business ventures frequently took their own citizens to foreign cities, such as Istanbul in Turkey (where the Italians lived in a separate quarter in the later Middle Ages), Alexandria in Egypt, and Damascus in Syria Despite the official hostility of the church to Islam, these merchants did business with Muslims and others, and this interchange encouraged new, more open attitudes In the 1270s the Venetian explorer Marco Polo (1254–1324) traveled across Asia and wrote a book on his return describing the wonders of the cultures he encountered, especially praising the China of the Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan (1215–94) Although many thought he was exaggerating, the book was very popular and showed a new European curiosity about the wider world Two other factors made later medieval Europe a more cosmopolitan place and encouraged a positive attitude toward foreigners In the early 1200s Saint Francis of Assisi (1181 or 1182–1226) from Italy and Saint Dominic (ca 1170–1221) from Spain founded a new kind of religious order whose vocation was not to stay in one place and pray (like the older Benedictine monks) but to travel about preaching and teaching Both branches of the order, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, grew at phenomenal rates and were international in scope Francis started with a handful of disciples from his hometown; before he died there were thousands of Franciscans throughout Europe, especially in the towns where huge new churches were built for the crowds who came to hear the preaching Friars traveled widely and lived in communities of mixed nationalities The same was true of the other great institution that was reshaping society, the university From the time universities first emerged around 1200 in Paris (France), Bologna (Italy), and Oxford (England), students flocked from all over to study theology or law and thus qualify for high positions in the church or state They formed associations based on their native language to negotiate conditions of work and study with the authorities (for example, English students in Paris), but all shared Latin as a common language of learning They also played and drank together in this universal language of educated Christendom, for some of their drinking songs have been preserved The faculty of medieval universities was also international in character; leading philosophy professors at Paris in the later 1200s were Albertus Magnus (ca 1200–80) of Germany and Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) of Italy Small towns and villages, in the later Middle Ages and long after, tended to be closed communities with limited exposure to foreigners (which could mean people from 20 miles away) and often kept a wary attitude toward them, but the larger towns and cities were cosmopolitan places where residents recognized the value of attracting foreigners The Islamic World by J ustin Corfield As the Islamic world expanded from Arabia to Egypt, the Holy Land, North Africa, and Asia Minor, large numbers of Christians, Jews, and others came under Islamic rule Despite numerous wars, pilgrims continued to travel to the Holy Land and other places connected with Christian saints, and some traders and craftspeople from Christian Europe visited the Islamic world For roughly four centuries after the Muslim Arabs captured Jerusalem in 638, Christians continued to visit the Holy Land, as they had since the fourth century The Arabs also allowed Jews to enter the city, lifting the ban imposed during Byzantine rule There are many accounts of foreigners visiting Jerusalem on pilgrimages during the period of Arab rule, and the large number that did so suggests that they were not put off by the long journey and were received by relatively tolerant or even welcoming Muslims Of the various pilgrims described in historical accounts, an Anglo-Saxon, Willibald, descended from the king of Kent, managed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 720s, and about 300 years later Sweyn Godwinson (d 1052), the eldest son of Earl Godwin of Wessex and brother of Harold II (later king of England), also went to Jerusalem, apparently completing much of the journey in bare feet Two English clerics, Alured, the bishop of Worcester, and Ingulphus, the abbot of Croyland Abbey, went to Jerusalem in 1058 and 1064, respectively A major change in access to Jerusalem occurred in 1071, when the city was captured by Seljuk Turks Descended from the Turkoman people of central Asia, the Seljuk Turks rejected foreign rule of any lands under their control They opposed anyone who was not Muslim and immediately began a process of discrimination against Christians In this atmosphere of heightened tensions Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095 The crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 and began establishing crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land The behavior of the crusaders—usually identified by Arab writers as Franks—led many in the Islamic world to despise European Christians and the crusader kingdoms How-