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persuading themselves, that, by the virtue of such an act, they would expiate their guilt, and propitiate his favour. Crowds, therefore, of men and women flocked from all parts of Europe to the Holy Land. From Bavaria, alone, it is said that twelve thousand on one occasion went forth.

For many years, while the whole of Judæa remained under the sway of the Caesars, the journey was an easy one. Few difficulties waylaid the traveller, or gave to pilgrimage even the merit of dangers encountered, or of difficulties Overcome. But, when the Mussulman power obtained the ascendant in Palestine, the case was changed, and both the Christian resident, and the Christian pilgrim, became the victims of the utmost cruelty and oppression. Still pilgrimages were prosecuted with unremitting zeal, and in the tenth and eleventh centuries the number of devotees greatly increased. In these days of papal darkness the perils of the journey, and the sufferings to be endured on arriving at Jerusalem, only operated as a more powerful motive with many to undertake it. "The glorious gospel of the blessed God" had proclaimed that a man is justified by faith without worksjustified freely by God's grace, "through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." But this great doctrine was now lost sight of, and men sought in wearisome pilgrimages, and painful penances, what can alone be found at the feet of Jesus, and in simple reliance on the merits of his blood and righteousness.

Of the many thousands who passed into Asia, a few isolated individuals only returned; but these every day, as they traversed the different countries of Europe on their journey back, filled all Christendom with the tale of their sufferings. The returned pilgrims, full of the marvels of their travels, bearing precious relics of the holy places they had visited, and sanctified in their own persons, according to the opinion of the people, by the merits of pilgrimage, could always find an attentive and an enthusiastic auditory. Their own pains and hardships, and the sorrows of their oppressed brethren, were their principal theme; and this never failed at once to excite the compassion, and arouse the indignation of their hearers. Every year the tide of popular feeling against the Turks rose higher and higher, until Christendom, unable longer to restrain its fury, demanded some great outlet for its relief. This was afforded by the Crusades.*

* Robertson, vol. i. note 13.

CHAPTER II.

PRELIMINARY EVENTS. A.D. 999-1096.

THE idea of a Crusade against the Moslems of the east originated with pope Sylvester II., before the close of the tenth century. He addressed a letter to the "church universal," entreating its succour for the church of Jerusalem. Pisa, however, was the only city which responded to this appeal, and all its efforts were mere predatory incursions on the Syrian coast.*

The idea thus started into existence, scarcely assuming a living tangible form-a dim and shadowy premonition of the future-slumbered quietly through the following century. It was not revived till the year 1073, when, Constantinople, trembling for her safety, the emperor Manuel XII. supplicated the aid of pope Gregory VII. The application of the eastern monarch was couched in terms of deep respect for his holiness, and of attachment to the western church. Gregory eagerly caught at the opportunity which it appeared to offer for the extinction of heresy, the union of the Greek and Latin churches, and the general triumph of the Christian over the Moslem cause, * Murator, tom. iii. p. 400.

and resolved at once to use means to arouse the princes of Christendom to arms. He wrote several letters on the subject, addressed one to the emperor Henry IV., another to all who were willing to defend the Christian religion, and a third, an encyclical letter, to all the faithful.*

The Roman pontiff so far succeeded that fifty thousand men prepared for the enterprise, at the head of whom he proposed to place himself, so highly elated was he at the ambitious prospect which opened to his view; but his mind was soon diverted from the miseries of the eastern church, by circumstances arising out of his exertions to establish the supreme dominion of the papacy over all the countries of the west, and all ideas of the Crusade speedily died

away.

The proposal of Gregory, however, was not without effect, though his soldiers did not march into Palestine, and the state of Asia was not affected by his preparations. It aroused a larger measure of indignation against the Mussulmans, whose cruelties had originated it. It gave strength to the conviction that Mohammedanism must be attacked in the very land where the crescent now waved in insulting triumph, but where the cross had achieved its earliest victories. Passions of hatred and revenge had long been in motion, like the hidden fires of a slumbering volcano, and the projected expedition of Gregory, awakening them to greater activity, hastened on the hour when they would burst forth in all their fury.

* Greg. Epist. lib. i. cap. xlix,

The work of arming Christendom against the Mohammedans of the east, and of arousing it to the rescue of Palestine, was reserved for a man, who, emerging from the utmost obscurity, speedily kindled a flame which spread from one end of Europe to the other. This was Peter the Hermit, a native of Amiens in France. In his youth he served as a soldier; he afterwards married a lady or noble family, but subsequently became a priest and anchorite. Hence the cognomen by which his contemporaries distinguished him. The Hermit is described as small of stature and contemptible in his external appearance, but his eyes flashed with peculiar intelligence and fire, and his eloquence was flowing and powerful. Possessed of an ardent imagination, his life, in the cell and the cloister, was spent in religious dreams and ecstasies, and thus trained he became at once the easy dupe and the powerful agent of one of the most extraordinary and fanatical delusions which ever enslaved the popular mind.*

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem being the prevailing passion in the religion of the times, it was not unlikely that Peter should become influenced by it. Accordingly, he resolved to undergo the pains and perils of the journey. Having accomplished his pilgrimage, the hermit paid the piece of gold demanded at the gates, and entered the holy city. He took up his abode with one of the Latin Christian residents, with Gulielmus Tyrii, lib. i. cap. xi.

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