§ 50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 281
A new era in European history was begun.1 A new pas sion had taken hold of its people. A new arena of conquest was opened for the warlike feudal lord, a tempting field of adventure and release for knight and debtor, an oppor tunity of freedom for serf and villein. All classes, lay and clerical, saw in the expedition to the cradle of their faith a solace for sin, a satisfaction of Christian fancy, a heavenappointed mission. The struggle of states with the papacy was for the moment at an end. All Europe was suddenly united in a common and holy cause, of which the supreme pontiff was beyond dispute the appointed leader.
§ 50. The First Crusade and the Capture of Jerusalem.
" And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, Nor my eyes see the cross which He bowed Him to bear, Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer,
Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near To the meek and the lowly and penitent here ; And the voice of Thy Love is the same even now, As at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow."
— WHITTIER.
The 15th of August, 1096, the Feast of the Assumption, fixed by the Council of Clermont for the departure of the Crusaders, was slow in coming. The excitement was too in tense for the people to wait. As early as March throngs of both sexes and all ages began to gather in Lorraine and at Treves, and to demand of Peter the Hermit and other leaders to lead them immediately to Jerusalem.2 It was a hetero-
1 Hegel, Philosophic der Gesch., p. 444, calls the Crusades " the culminat ing point of the Middle Ages." Contemporaries like Guibert of Nogent, 123, could think of no movement equal in glory with the Crusades. Ordericus Vitalis, III. 458, praised the union of peoples of different tongues in a project so praiseworthy.
2 For the account of these early expeditions, we are chiefly dependent upon Albert of Aachen. Guibert makes no distinction of sections, and has only a cursory notice of the expeditions before the arrival of Peter in Con stantinople.
232 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
geneous multitude of devout enthusiasts and idle adventur ers, without proper preparation of any kind. The priest for sook his cell, the peasant left his plough and placed his wife and children on carts drawn by oxen, and thus went forth to make the journey and to fight the Turk. At the villages along the route the children cried out, "Is this Jerusalem, is this Jerusalem?" William of Malmesbury wrote (IV. 2) "The Welshman left his hunting, the Scot his fellowship with lice, the Dane his drinking party, the Norwegian his raw fish. Fields were deserted of their husbandmen ; whole cities migrated. . . . God alone was placed before their eyes."
The unwieldy bands, or swarms, were held together loosely under enthusiastic but incompetent leaders. The first swarm, comprising from twelve thousand to twenty thousand under Walter the Penniless,1 marched safely through Hungary, but was cut to pieces at the storming of Belgrade or destroyed in the Bulgarian forests. The leader and a few stragglers were all that reached Constantinople.
The second swarm, comprising more than forty thousand, was led by the Hermit himself. There were knights not a few, and among the ecclesiastics were the archbishop of Salz burg and the bishops of Chur and Strassburg. On their march through Hungary they were protected by the Hun garian king; but when they reached the Bulgarian frontier, they found one continuous track of blood and fire, robbery and massacre, marking the route of their predecessors. Only a remnant of seven thousand reached Constantinople, and they in the most pitiful condition, July, 1096. Here they were well treated by the Emperor Alexius, who trans ported them across the Bosphorus to Asia, where they were to await the arrival of the regular army. Bat they pre-
1 Sine Pecunia, Sansavoir, Habenichts. These preliminary expeditions, Rohricht and other historians call Die Z'rir/e der Bauern, the campaigns of the peasants.