"Long beards heartlesse, Painted hoods witlesse, Gray coats gracelesse, Make England thriftlesse."
When the Emperor Charles V. ascended the throne of Spain he had no beard. It was not to be expected that the obsequious parasites who always surround a monarch, could presume to look more virile than their master. Immediately all the courtiers appeared beardless, with the exception of such few grave old men as had outgrown the influence of fashion, and who had determined to die bearded as they had lived. Sober people in general saw this revolution with sorrow and alarm, and thought that every manly virtue would be banished with the beard. It became at the time a common saying,--
"Desde que no hay barba, no hay mas alma." We have no longer souls since we have lost our beards.
In France also the beard fell into disrepute after the death of Henry IV., from the mere reason that his successor was too young to have one. Some of the more immediate friends of the great Béarnais, and his minister Sully among the rest, refused to part with their beards, notwithstanding the jeers of the new generation.
Who does not remember the division of England into the two great parties of Roundheads and Cavaliers? In those days every species of vice and iniquity was thought by the Puritans to lurk in the long curly tresses of the monarchists, while the latter imagined that their opponents were as destitute of wit, of wisdom, and of virtue, as they were of hair. A man's locks were the symbol of his creed, both in politics and religion. The more abundant the hair, the more scant the faith; and the balder the head, the more sincere the piety.
[Illustration: PETER THE GREAT.]
But among all the instances of the interference of governments with men's hair, the most extraordinary, not only for its daring, but for its success, is that of Peter the Great, in 1705. By this time fashion had condemned the beard in every other country in Europe, and with a voice more potent than popes or emperors, had banished it from civilised society. But this only made the Russians cling more fondly to their ancient ornament, as a mark to distinguish them from foreigners, whom they hated. Peter, however, resolved that they should be shaven. If he had been a man deeply read in history, he might have hesitated before he attempted so despotic an attack upon the time-hallowed customs and prejudices of his countrymen; but he was not. He did not know or consider the danger of the innovation; he only listened to the promptings of his own indomitable will, and his fiat went forth, that not only the army, but all ranks of citizens, from the nobles to the serfs, should shave their beards. A certain time was given, that people might get over the first throes of their repugnance, after which every man who chose to retain his beard was to pay a tax of one hundred roubles. The priests and the serfs were put on a lower footing, and allowed to retain theirs upon payment of a copeck every time they passed the gate of a city. Great discontent existed in consequence, but the dreadful fate of the Strelitzes was too recent to be forgotten, and thousands who had the will had not the courage to revolt. As is well remarked by a writer in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, they thought it wiser to cut off their beards than to run the risk of incensing a man who would make no scruple in cutting off their heads. Wiser, too, than the popes and bishops of a former age, he did not threaten them with eternal damnation, but made them pay in hard cash the penalty of their disobedience. For many years, a very considerable revenue was collected from this source. The collectors gave in receipt for its payment a small copper coin, struck expressly for the purpose, and called the "_borodováia_," or "the bearded." On one side it bore the figure of a nose, mouth, and moustaches, with a long bushy beard, surmounted by the words, "_Deuyee Vyeatee_," "money received;" the whole encircled by a wreath, and stamped with the black eagle of Russia. On the reverse, it bore the date of the year. Every man who chose to wear a beard was obliged to produce this receipt on his entry into a town. Those who were refractory, and refused to pay the tax, were thrown into prison.
Since that day, the rulers of modern Europe have endeavoured to persuade, rather than to force, in all matters pertaining to fashion. The Vatican troubles itself no more about beards or ringlets, and men may become hairy as bears, if such is their fancy, without fear of excommunication or deprivation of their political rights. Folly has taken a new start, and cultivates the moustache.
Even upon this point governments will not let men alone. Religion as yet has not meddled with it; but perhaps it will; and politics already influence it considerably. Before the revolution of 1830, neither the French nor Belgian citizens were remarkable for their moustaches; but, after that event, there was hardly a shopkeeper either in Paris or Brussels whose upper lip did not suddenly become hairy with real or mock moustaches. During a temporary triumph gained by the Dutch soldiers over the citizens of Louvain, in October 1830, it became a standing joke against the patriots, that they shaved their faces clean immediately; and the wits of the Dutch army asserted that they had gathered moustaches enough from the denuded lips of the Belgians to stuff mattresses for all the sick and wounded in their hospital.
The last folly of this kind is still more recent. In the German newspapers, of August 1838, appeared an ordonnance, signed by the king of Bavaria, forbidding civilians, on any pretence whatever, to wear moustaches, and commanding the police and other authorities to arrest, and cause to be shaved, the offending parties. "Strange to say," adds _Le Droit_, the journal from which this account is taken, "moustaches disappeared immediately, like leaves from the trees in autumn; every body made haste to obey the royal order, and not one person was arrested."
The king of Bavaria, a rhymester of some celebrity, has taken a good many poetical licences in his time. His licence in this matter appears neither poetical nor reasonable. It is to be hoped that he will not take it into his royal head to make his subjects shave theirs; nothing but that is wanting to complete their degradation.
[Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY.[77]]
[77] The above engraving, shewing two soldiers of William the Conqueror's army, is taken from the celebrated Bayeux Tapestry.--See _ante_, p. 297.
END OF VOL. I.
[Illustration: POPE URBAN PREACHING THE CRUSADES.]
MEMOIRS
OF
EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS.
VOLUME II.
[Illustration: VIEW IN THE THE HARZ MOUNTAINS.]
LONDON:
OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,
227 STRAND.
1852.
MEMOIRS
OF
EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS
AND THE
MADNESS OF CROWDS.
BY CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D.
AUTHOR OF "EGERIA," "THE SALAMANDRINE," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS.
VOL. II.
N'en déplaise à ces fous nommés sages de Grèce, En ce monde il n'est point de parfaite sagesse; Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgré tous leurs soîns Ne diffèrent entre eux que du plus ou du moins. BOILEAU.
LONDON:
OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY,
227 STRAND.
1852.
CONTENTS.
THE CRUSADES.
Different accounts of the Crusaders derived from History and Romance--Pilgrimages to the Holy Land first undertaken by converted Jews and the very credulous--Increasing number of pilgrims every year--Relics greatly valued--Haroun al Reschid--The pilgrims taxed--Robert of Normandy--The pilgrims persecuted by the Turks--Peter the Hermit--His first idea of rousing the powers of Christendom--His interview with Simeon--Peter the Hermit preaches the Holy War to all the nations of Christendom--The Pope crosses the Alps--King Philip accused of adultery with Bertrade de Montfort--The Council of Clermont--Oration of Urban II.--The "Truce of God"--_Gautier sans Avoir_, or Walter the Pennyless--Gottschalk--The arrival at Semlin--Peter the Hermit at Nissa--At Constantinople--The Crusaders conducted in safety to Constantinople--Fresh hordes from Germany--Godfrey of Bouillon--Count of Vermandois--Tancred--The siege of Antioch--The Holy Lance--Fate of Peter Barthelemy--Siege of Jerusalem--St. Bernard--Second Crusade: Siege of Damascus--Third Crusade: Death of Henry II.--Richard Coeur de Lion--Fourth Crusade--Fifth Crusade: Constantinople assaulted--Sixth Crusade: Camhel and Cohreddin--Seventh Crusade: Departure of Louis IX. for Cyprus--For Acre--His death at Carthage--End of the Crusades
THE WITCH MANIA.
Popular notions of the devil--Inferior demons--Demons of both sexes--Demons preferring the night between Friday and Saturday--The devil in the shape of a goat--Sorcery--Execution of Joan of Arc--Witches burned in Europe--Various charges of Witchcraft--Trois Echelles--The Witches of Warbois--John Knox--Torture of Dr. Fian--The Lancashire Witches--Matthew Hopkins--Burnings at Würzburg, at Lindheim, at Labourt--Request of the parliament of Rouen to the King, in 1670--Würzburg the scene of the last case of Witchcraft--The Witchcraft of Lady Hatton--Witchcraft at Hastings and many other parts of England
THE SLOW POISONERS.
Murder of Sir Thomas Overbury--Trial of Weston--Of Sir Jervis Elwes--Poisoning most prevalent in Italy--Poisons manufactured by La Tophania--Her death--Madame de Brinvilliers--The poisoning of her father and two brothers--Lavoisin and Lavigoreux
HAUNTED HOUSES.
The haunted house in Aix-la-Chapelle--In Tours--The royal palace of Woodstock a haunted house--The supposed ghosts at Tedworth--At Cock Lane--At Stockwell--Haunted house at Baldarroch
POPULAR FOLLIES OF GREAT CITIES.
Cant phrases--"Quoz"--"What a shocking bad hat"--"Hookey Walker"--"There he goes with his eye out"--"Has your mother sold her mangle?"--"Does your mother know you're out?"--"Tom and Jerry"--"Jim Crow"
POPULAR ADMIRATION OF GREAT THIEVES.
Robin Hood--Claude Duval--Dick Turpin--Jonathan Wild--Jack Sheppard--Vidocq--Mausch Nadel--The Beggar's Opera--Rob Roy
DUELS AND ORDEALS.
The origin of the Duello--All persons engaged in duelling excommunicated by the Council of Trent--The fire ordeal--The water ordeal--The Corsned--Duel between Ingelgerius and Gontran--Duel between François de Vivonne and Guy de Chabot--L'Isle-Marivaut and Marolles--Richelieu--Duel between the Dukes De Beaufort and De Nemours--Laws against Duelling--Duel between Lord Sanquir and Turner--Between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun--German students inveterate Duellists
RELICS.
The True Cross--Tears of our Saviour--The Santa Scala, or Holy Stairs--The mad Knight of Malta--Shakspeare's Mulberry-tree
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS IN VOL. II.
Pope Urban preaching the first Crusade.--Frontispiece.
View in the Harz Mountains. (Capt. Batty's _Hanoverian and Saxon Scenery_.)--Title-page.
Initial--Crusaders' Weapons of the eleventh century
Peter the Hermit preaching
Cathedral at Clermont. (Sommerard's _Album_)
Nicée, Asia Minor. (Leon de Laborde's _Voyage en Orient_)
Godfrey of Bouillon. (From the Statue by Simonis, Brussels)
Siege of Antioch
The Holy Lance. (Copied, in Hone's _Everyday Book_, from a very rare print published by the Ecclesiastics of Nuremberg)
Shrine of the Nativity, Bethlehem. (Laborde's _Voyage en Orient_)
Pilgrims' first sight of Jerusalem. (Print by Plüddemann)
Siege of Jerusalem
Jerusalem. (Gerhardt von Breydenbach's _Grand Voyage de Jherusalem_, 1517)
Bible of Baldwin's Queen. (Original in the British Museum)
Cathedral of Vezelai. (Sommerard's _Album_)
Pilgrim's Staff. (The _Archæologia_)
Damascus. (Laborde's _Voyage en Orient_)
Seal of Frederick Barbarossa. (Venetian History)
Henry II. (Stothard's _Monumental Effigies_)
Château of Gisors, Normandy. (_L'Univers Pittoresque_)
Philip Augustus. (Willemin's _Monumens Français inédits_)
The Island of Rhodes. (Royal Library, British Museum; print "in _Venetia_, 1570")
Richard I. and Berengaria. (Stothard's _Monumental Effigies_)
Bethlehem. (Laborde's _Voyage en Orient_)
Constantinople. (Print, Johann Baptist Hooman, Royal Library, British Museum)
Templar and Hospitaller. (Fairholt's _Book of Costumes_)
Jaffa. (Laborde's _Voyage en Orient_)
Longespee or Longsword, Earl of Salisbury. (Effigy in Salisbury Cathedral)
Seal of Edward I. (From Great Seal)
Tomb of Queen Eleanor, Westminster Abbey. (Original sketch)
Arras. (Coney's _Cathedrals and Hotels de Ville_)
Philip IV. of France
Joan of Arc
Gate of Constance. (Print, from drawing by Major Cockburn)
Charles IX. of France. (French print by Adolph Brune)
Bishop Jewell
John Knox
Torture of the Boots. (Knight's _Pictorial Shakspere_)
James I. the Demonologist
Sir G. Mackenzie
Pietro d'Apone
Mathew Hopkins. (Print in Caulfield's _Remarkable Persons_, copied from a rare print in the collection of J. Bindley, Esq.)
Sir Mathew Hale
Sir Thomas Brown
Lyons. (Prout's _Views in France_)
Bamberg. (Prout's _Views in Germany_)
Palais de Justice, Rouen. (Sommerard's _Arts du Moyen Age_)
Louis XIV.
Würzburg. (Prout's _Views in Germany_)
Lady Hatton's House, Cross Street, Hatton Garden. (Original sketch)
Floating a Witch
Place de Grève, Paris. (Old print)
Sir T. Overbury. (An extremely rare print by R. Elstracke)
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham
Lord Chief-Justice Coke
The Earl of Somerset
Countess of Somerset
Death of Dr. Lamb, St. Paul's Cross. (The Cross copied from print in Wilkinson's _Londina Illustrata_)
The Bastille. (_Views of Public Edifices in Paris_, by MM. Legard et Testard)
Palace of Woodstock in 1714. (From a print of date)
Saint Louis of France. (Willemin's _Monumens Français inédits_)
Haunted House in Cock Lane. (Original sketch)
Room in the haunted house in Cock Lane. (Original sketch)
Sherwood Forest
Duel between Du Guesclin and Troussel
Duel between Ingelgerius and Gontran
Henry IV.
Gallery in the Palace of Fontainebleau. (Sommerard's _Arts du Moyen Age_)
The Duke de Sully
Lord Bacon
[Illustration]
MEMOIRS
OF
EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS.
THE CRUSADES.
They heard, and up they sprang upon the wing Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the realm of Nile, So numberless were they. * * * * All in a moment through the gloom were seen Ten thousand banners rise into the air, With orient colours waving. With them rose A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms Appear'd, and serried shields, in thick array, Of depth immeasurable. _Paradise Lost_.
[Illustration: E]
Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined. Every one of these causes influenced the Crusades, and conspired to render them the most extraordinary instance upon record of the extent to which popular enthusiasm can be carried. History in her solemn page informs us, that the Crusaders were but ignorant and savage men, that their motives were those of bigotry unmitigated, and that their pathway was one of blood and tears. Romance, on the other hand, dilates upon their piety and heroism, and portrays, in her most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honour they acquired for themselves, and the great services they rendered to Christianity. In the following pages we shall ransack the stores of both, to discover the true spirit that animated the motley multitude who took up arms in the service of the cross, leaving history to vouch for facts, but not disdaining the aid of contemporary poetry and romance, to throw light upon feelings, motives, and opinions.
In order to understand thoroughly the state of public feeling in Europe at the time when Peter the Hermit preached the holy war, it will be necessary to go back for many years anterior to that event. We must make acquaintance with the pilgrims of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, and learn the tales they told of the dangers they had passed and the wonders they had seen. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land seem at first to have been undertaken by converted Jews, and by Christian devotees of lively imagination, pining with a natural curiosity to visit the scenes which of all others were most interesting in their eyes. The pious and the impious alike flocked to Jerusalem,--the one class to feast their sight on the scenes hallowed by the life and sufferings of their Lord, and the other, because it soon became a generally received opinion, that such a pilgrimage was sufficient to rub off the long score of sins, however atrocious. Another and very numerous class of pilgrims were the idle and roving, who visited Palestine then as the moderns visit Italy or Switzerland now, because it was the fashion, and because they might please their vanity by retailing, on their return, the adventures they had met with. But the really pious formed the great majority. Every year their numbers increased, until at last they became so numerous as to be called the "armies of the Lord." Full of enthusiasm, they set the dangers and difficulties of the way at defiance, and lingered with holy rapture on every scene described by the Evangelists. To them it was bliss indeed to drink the clear waters of the Jordan, or be baptised in the same stream where John had baptised the Saviour. They wandered with awe and pleasure in the purlieus of the Temple, on the solemn Mount of Olives, or the awful Calvary, where a God had bled for sinful men. To these pilgrims every object was precious. Relics were eagerly sought after; flagons of water from Jordan, or panniers of mould from the hill of the Crucifixion, were brought home, and sold at extravagant prices to churches and monasteries. More apocryphal relics, such as the wood of the true cross, the tears of the Virgin Mary, the hems of her garments, the toe-nails and hair of the Apostles--even the tents that Paul had helped to manufacture--were exhibited for sale by the knavish in Palestine, and brought back to Europe "with wondrous cost and care." A grove of a hundred oaks would not have furnished all the wood sold in little morsels as remnants of the true cross; and the tears of Mary, if collected together, would have filled a cistern.
For upwards of two hundred years the pilgrims met with no impediment in Palestine. The enlightened Haroun Al Reschid, and his more immediate successors, encouraged the stream which brought so much wealth into Syria, and treated the wayfarers with the utmost courtesy. The race of Fatemite caliphs,--who, although in other respects as tolerant, were more distressed for money, or more unscrupulous in obtaining it, than their predecessors of the house of Abbas,--imposed a tax of a bezant for each pilgrim that entered Jerusalem. This was a serious hardship upon the poorer sort, who had begged their weary way across Europe, and arrived at the bourne of all their hopes without a coin. A great outcry was immediately raised, but still the tax was rigorously levied. The pilgrims unable to pay were compelled to remain at the gate of the holy city until some rich devotee arriving with his train, paid the tax and let them in. Robert of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, who, in common with many other nobles of the highest rank, undertook the pilgrimage, found on his arrival scores of pilgrims at the gate, anxiously expecting his coming to pay the tax for them. Upon no occasion was such a boon refused.
The sums drawn from this source were a mine of wealth to the Moslem governors of Palestine, imposed as the tax had been at a time when pilgrimages had become more numerous than ever. A strange idea had taken possession of the popular mind at the close of the tenth and commencement of the eleventh century. It was universally believed that the end of the world was at hand; that the thousand years of the Apocalypse were near completion, and that Jesus Christ would descend upon Jerusalem to judge mankind. All Christendom was in commotion. A panic terror seized upon the weak, the credulous, and the guilty, who in those days formed more than nineteen-twentieths of the population. Forsaking their homes, kindred, and occupation, they crowded to Jerusalem to await the coming of the Lord, lightened, as they imagined, of a load of sin by their weary pilgrimage. To increase the panic, the stars were observed to fall from heaven, earthquakes to shake the land, and violent hurricanes to blow down the forests. All these, and more especially the meteoric phenomena, were looked upon as the forerunners of the approaching judgments. Not a meteor shot athwart the horizon that did not fill a district with alarm, and send away to Jerusalem a score of pilgrims, with staff in hand and wallet on their back, praying as they went for the remission of their sins. Men, women, and even children, trudged in droves to the holy city, in expectation of the day when the heavens would open, and the Son of God descend in his glory. This extraordinary delusion, while it augmented the numbers, increased also the hardships of the pilgrims. Beggars became so numerous on all the highways between the west of Europe and Constantinople, that the monks, the great almsgivers upon these occasions, would have brought starvation within sight of their own doors, if they had not economised their resources, and left the devotees to shift for themselves as they could. Hundreds of them were glad to subsist upon the berries that ripened by the road, who, before this great flux, might have shared the bread and flesh of the monasteries.
But this was not the greatest of their difficulties. On their arrival in Jerusalem they found that a sterner race had obtained possession of the Holy Land. The caliphs of Bagdad had been succeeded by the harsh Turks of the race of Seljook, who looked upon the pilgrims with contempt and aversion. The Turks of the eleventh century were more ferocious and less scrupulous than the Saracens of the tenth. They were annoyed at the immense number of pilgrims who overran the country, and still more so because they shewed no intention of quitting it. The hourly expectation of the last judgment kept them waiting; and the Turks, apprehensive of being at last driven from the soil by the swarms that were still arriving, heaped up difficulties in their way. Persecution of every kind awaited them. They were plundered, and beaten with stripes, and kept in suspense for months at the gates of Jerusalem, unable to pay the golden bezant that was to procure them admission.
When the first epidemic terror of the day of judgment began to subside, a few pilgrims ventured to return to Europe, their hearts big with indignation at the insults they had suffered. Every where as they passed they related to a sympathising auditory the wrongs of Christendom. Strange to say, even these recitals increased the mania for pilgrimage. The greater the dangers of the way, the fairer chance that sins of deep dye would be atoned for. Difficulty and suffering only heightened the merit, and fresh hordes issued from every town and village, to win favour in the sight of heaven by a visit to the holy sepulchre. Thus did things continue during the whole of the eleventh century.
The train that was to explode so fearfully was now laid, and there wanted but the hand to apply the torch. At last the man appeared upon the scene. Like all who have ever achieved so great an end, Peter the Hermit was exactly suited to the age; neither behind it nor in advance of it; but acute enough to penetrate its mystery ere it was discovered by any other. Enthusiastic, chivalrous, bigoted, and, if not insane, not far removed from insanity, he was the very prototype of the time. True enthusiasm is always persevering and always eloquent, and these two qualities were united in no common degree in the person of this extraordinary preacher. He was a monk of Amiens, and ere he assumed the hood had served as a soldier. He is represented as having been ill favoured and low in stature, but with an eye of surpassing brightness and intelligence. Having been seized with the mania of the age, he visited Jerusalem, and remained there till his blood boiled to see the cruel persecution heaped upon the devotees. On his return home he shook the world by the eloquent story of their wrongs.
Before entering into any further details of the marvellous results of his preaching, it will be advisable to cast a glance at the state of the mind of Europe, that we may understand all the better the causes of his success. First of all, there was the priesthood, which, exercising as it did the most conspicuous influence upon the fortunes of society, claims the largest share of attention. Religion was the ruling idea of that day, and the only civiliser capable of taming such wolves as then constituted the flock of the faithful. The clergy were all in all; and though they kept the popular mind in the most slavish subjection with regard to religious matters, they furnished it with the means of defence against all other oppression except their own. In the ecclesiastical ranks were concentrated all the true piety, all the learning, all the wisdom of the time; and, as a natural consequence, a great portion of power, which their very wisdom perpetually incited them to extend. The people knew nothing of kings and nobles, except in the way of injuries inflicted. The first ruled for, or more properly speaking against, the barons, and the barons only existed to brave the power of the kings, or to trample with their iron heels upon the neck of prostrate democracy. The latter had no friend but the clergy, and these, though they necessarily instilled the superstition from which they themselves were not exempt, yet taught the cheering doctrine that all men were equal in the sight of heaven. Thus, while Feudalism told them they had no rights in this world, Religion told them they had every right in the next. With this consolation they were for the time content, for political ideas had as yet taken no root. When the clergy, for other reasons, recommended the Crusade, the people joined in it with enthusiasm. The subject of Palestine filled all minds; the pilgrims' tales of two centuries warmed every imagination; and when their friends, their guides, and their instructors preached a war so much in accordance with their own prejudices and modes of thinking, the enthusiasm rose into a frenzy.
But while religion inspired the masses, another agent was at work upon the nobility. These were fierce and lawless; tainted with every vice, endowed with no virtue, and redeemed by one good quality alone, that of courage. The only religion they felt was the religion of fear. That and their overboiling turbulence alike combined to guide them to the Holy Land. Most of them had sins enough to answer for. They lived with their hand against every man, and with no law but their own passions. They set at defiance the secular power of the clergy; but their hearts quailed at the awful denunciations of the pulpit with regard to the life to come. War was the business and the delight of their existence; and when they were promised remission of all their sins upon the easy condition of following their favourite bent, it is not to be wondered at that they rushed with enthusiasm to the onslaught, and became as zealous in the service of the cross as the great majority of the people, who were swayed by more purely religious motives. Fanaticism and the love of battle alike impelled them to the war, while the kings and princes of Europe had still another motive for encouraging their zeal. Policy opened their eyes to the great advantages which would accrue to themselves by the absence of so many restless, intriguing, and bloodthirsty men, whose insolence it required more than the small power of royalty to restrain within due bounds. Thus every motive was favourable to the Crusades. Every class of society was alike incited to join or encourage the war: kings and the clergy by policy, the nobles by turbulence and the love of dominion, and the people by religious zeal and the concentrated enthusiasm of two centuries, skilfully directed by their only instructors.
It was in Palestine itself that Peter the Hermit first conceived the grand idea of rousing the powers of Christendom to rescue the Christians of the East from the thraldom of the Mussulmans, and the sepulchre of Jesus from the rude hands of the infidel. The subject engrossed his whole mind. Even in the visions of the night he was full of it. One dream made such an impression upon him, that he devoutly believed the Saviour of the world himself appeared before him, and promised him aid and protection in his holy undertaking. If his zeal had ever wavered before, this was sufficient to fix it for ever.
Peter, after he had performed all the penances and duties of his pilgrimage, demanded an interview with Simeon, the Patriarch of the Greek Church at Jerusalem. Though the latter was a heretic in Peter's eyes, yet he was still a Christian, and felt as acutely as himself for the persecutions heaped by the Turks upon the followers of Jesus. The good prelate entered fully into his views, and, at his suggestion, wrote letters to the Pope, and to the most influential monarchs of Christendom, detailing the sorrows of the faithful, and urging them to take up arms in their defence. Peter was not a laggard in the work. Taking an affectionate farewell of the Patriarch, he returned in all haste to Italy. Pope Urban II. occupied the apostolic chair. It was at that time far from being an easy seat. His predecessor Gregory had bequeathed him a host of disputes with the Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, and he had converted Philip I. of France into an enemy by his strenuous opposition to an adulterous connexion formed by that monarch. So many dangers encompassed him, that the Vatican was no secure abode, and he had taken refuge in Apulia, under the protection of the renowned Robert Guiscard. Thither Peter appears to have followed him, though in what spot their meeting took place is not stated with any precision by ancient chroniclers or modern historians. Urban received him most kindly; read, with tears in his eyes, the epistle from the Patriarch Simeon, and listened to the eloquent story of the Hermit with an attention which shewed how deeply he sympathised with the woes of the Christian Church. Enthusiasm is contagious; and the Pope appears to have caught it instantly from one whose zeal was so unbounded. Giving the Hermit full powers, he sent him abroad to preach the holy war to all the nations and potentates of Christendom. The Hermit preached, and countless thousands answered to his call. France, Germany, and Italy started at his voice, and prepared for the deliverance of Zion. One of the early historians of the Crusade, who was himself an eye-witness of the rapture of Europe,[1] describes the personal appearance of the Hermit at this time. He says, that there appeared to be something of divine in every thing which he said or did. The people so highly reverenced him, that they plucked hairs from the mane of his mule that they might keep them as relics. While preaching, he wore in general a woollen tunic, with a dark-coloured mantle, which fell down to his heels. His arms and feet were bare; and he ate neither flesh nor bread, supporting himself chiefly upon fish and wine. "He set out," says the chronicler, "from whence I know not; but we saw him passing through the towns and villages, preaching every where, and the people surrounding him in crowds, loading him with offerings, and celebrating his sanctity with such great praises, that I never remember to have seen such honours bestowed upon any one." Thus he went on, untired, inflexible, and full of devotion, communicating his own madness to his hearers, until Europe was stirred from its very depths.