text: During the era of the Islamic expansion, Emperor Charlemagne (–814) sent two embassies to the caliph of Baghdad, asking Frankish protectorate over the Holy Land. An epic  recounts his legendary adventures in the Mediterranean and pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
  By virtue of its defining characteristic of subinfeudation, in feudalism it was common practice for knights commanders to confer knighthoods upon their finest soldiers, who in turn had the right to confer knighthood on others upon attaining command. Tradition maintains, that long before the Crusades, a form of knighthood was bestowed upon worthy men at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In any case, during the 11th century, prior to the Crusades, the "" were established to protect Christians and Christian premises in the Occident.
  Persecution of Christians in the Holy Land intensified and relations with Christian rulers were further strained when Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009.
  Crusades
  The crusades coincided with a renewed concern in Europe for the holy places, with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as one of the most important places. According to an undocumented tradition, Girolamo Gabrielli of the Italian Gabrielli family, who was the leader of 1000 knights from Gubbio, Umbria, during the First Crusade, was the first crusader to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after Jerusalem was seized in 1099.