§ 50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 241
victors were covered with blood from head to foot." In the next breath, speaking of the devotion of the Crusaders, the archbishop adds, " It was a most affecting sight which filled the heart with holy joy to see the people tread the holy places in the fervor of an excellent devotion." The Crusaders had won the tomb of the Saviour and gazed upon a frag ment of the true cross, which some of the inhabitants were fortunate enough to have kept concealed during the siege.
Before returning to Europe, Peter the Hermit received the homage of the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem, who re membered his visit as a pilgrim and his services in their behalf. This was the closing scene of his connection with the Crusades.1 Returning to Europe, he founded the monas tery at Huy, in the diocese Liege, and died, 1115. A statue was dedicated to his memory at Amiens, June 29, 1854. He is represented in the garb of a monk, a rosary at his waist, a cross in his right hand, preaching the First Crusade.
Urban II. died two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem and before the tidings of the event had time to reach his ears.
No more favorable moment could have been chosen for the Crusade. The Seljukian power, which was at its height in the eleventh century, was broken up into rival dynasties and factions by the death of Molik Shah, 1092. The Crusaders entered as a wedge before the new era of Moslem conquest and union opened.
NOTE ON THE RELATION OF PETER THE HERMIT TO THE FlRST CRUSADE.
The view of Peter the Hermit, presented in this work, does not accord with the position taken by most of the modern writers on the Crusades. It is based on the testimony of Albert of Aachen and William of Tyre, historians of the First Crusade, and is, that Peter visited Jerusalem as a pilgrim, conversed with the patriarch Simeon over the desolations of the city, had a dream in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, returned to Europe with letters from Simeon which he presented to the pope, and then
1 William of Tyre is the earliest witness to this scene. Leaving out embellishinents, it does not seem to be at all unnatural. Hagenmeyer, pp. 265-269, calls it the " sheer invention of William's fancy."
242 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
preached through Italy and beyond the Alps, and perhaps attended the Council of Clermont, where, however, he took no prominent part.
The new view is that these occurrences were fictions. It was first set forth by von Sybel in his work on the First Crusade, in 1841. Sybel's work, which marks an epoch in the treatment of the Crusades, was suggested by the lectures of Ranke, 1837. l Its author, after a careful comparison of the earliest accounts, announced that there is no reliable evidence that Peter was the immediate instigator of the First Crusade, and that not to him but to Urban II. alone belongs the honor of having originated the movement. Peter did not make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, meet Urban, or preach about the woes of the Holy City prior to the assembling of the Synod of Clermont.
These views, with some modification, have been advocated by Hagenmeyer in his careful and scholarly work on Peter the Hermit and in other writings on the First Crusade.2 In our own country the same view has been set forth by eminent scholars. Professor Oliver J. Thatcher, in an article on the Latin Sources of the First Crusade,* says, "The stories about Peter the Hermit, his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, his visions there, his journey to the pope at Rome, his successful appeals to Urban to preach a crusade, and Peter's com manding position as one of the great preachers and leaders of the Crusade, all are found to be without the least foundation in fact." Dr. Dana C. Munro has recently declared that the belief that Peter was the instigator of the First Crusade has long since been abandoned.4
It is proper that the reasons should be given in brief which have led to the retention of the old view in this volume. The author's view agrees with the judgment expressed by Archer, Story of the Crusades, p. 27, that the account of Albert of Aachen " is no doubt true in the main."
Albert of Aachen wrote his History of Jerusalem about 1120-1125,5 that is, while many of the Crusaders were still alive who took part in the siege of Jerusalem, 1099. William, archbishop of Tyre, was born probably in Jeru salem about 1130. He was a man of learning, acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic ; well read in the Bible, as his quotations show, and travelled in Europe. He is one of the ablest of the mediaeval historians, and his work is the monumental history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was by his residence thoroughly acquainted with Palestine. It is not unworthy of mention that William's History represents the "office of the historian to be not to write what pleases him, but the material which the
1 Sybel, Gesc.h. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. ii.
2 Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite, p. 102, says, Dem Papste allein ist der Ruhm zu erhalten den ihm der Einsiedler von Amiens bis auf unsere Tage zur grosseren Halfte streitig gemacht hat. Also Sybel, p. 243.
3 fieport of the Am. Hist. Association, 1900, p. 504 sq. See also the very emphatic statements of G. L. Burr in art. The year 1000 and the Ante cedents of the Crusades in the " Am. Hist. Rev.," April, 1901, pp. 429-439, and Trans, and Reprints of the Univ. of Pa., 1894, pp. 19 sqq.
4 The Speech of Urban II. etc., in " Am. Hist. Rev., "*1 906, p. 232.
5 He says he reports what he heard, ex auditu et relatione.