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[ Fuit et aliud scelus detestabile in hac congregatione pedestris populi stulti et vesanae levitatis, anserem quendam divino spiritu asserebant afflatum, et capellam non minus eodem repletam, et has sibi duces secundae viae fecerant, &c., (Albert. Aquensis, l. i. c. 31, p. 196.) Had these peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philosophic descend ants would have glossed over with some specious and subtile allegory. * Note: A singular “allegoric” explanation of this strange fact has recently been broached: it is connected with the charge of idolatry and Eastern heretical opinions subsequently made against the Templars. “We have no doubt that they were Manichee or Gnostic standards.” (The author says the animals themselves were carried before the army.—M.) “The goose, in Egyptian symbols, as every Egyptian scholar knows, meant ‘divine Son,’ or ‘Son of God.’ The goat meant Typhon, or Devil. Thus we have the Manichee opposing principles of good and evil, as standards, at the head of the ignorant mob of crusading invaders. Can any one doubt that a large portion of this host must have been infected with the Manichee or Gnostic idolatry?” Account of the Temple Church by R. W. Billings, p. 5 London. 1838. This is, at all events, a curious coincidence, especially considered in connection with the extensive dissemination of the Paulician opinions among the common people of Europe. At any rate, in so inexplicable a matter, we are inclined to catch at any explanation, however wild or subtile.—M.]
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[ Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his Jewish brethren from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich, generous, learned, hospitable, and lived in the eager hope of the Messiah, (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245, par Baratier.) In seventy years (he wrote about A.D. 1170) they had recovered from these massacres.]
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[ These massacres and depredations on the Jews, which were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true, that St. Bernard (epist. 363, tom. i. p. 329) admonishes the Oriental Franks, non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival monk. * Note: This is an unjust sarcasm against St. Bernard. He stood above all rivalry of this kind See note 31, c. l x.—M]
Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy, the crusaders were compelled to traverse as interval of six hundred miles; the wild and desolate countries of Hungary [38] and Bulgaria. The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers; but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native princes; the Bulgarians by a lieutenant of the Greek emperor; but, on the slightest provocation, their ferocious nature was rekindled, and ample provocation was afforded by the disorders of the first pilgrims Agriculture must have been unskilful and languid among a people, whose cities were built of reeds and timber, which were deserted in the summer season for the tents of hunters and shepherds. A scanty supply of provisions was rudely demanded, forcibly seized, and greedily consumed; and on the first quarrel, the crusaders gave a loose to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of discipline, exposed them to every snare. The Greek praefect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; [381] at the trumpet of the Hungarian king, the eighth or the tenth of his martial subjects bent their bows and mounted on horseback; their policy was insidious, and their retaliation on these pious robbers was unrelenting and bloody. [39] About a third of the naked fugitives (and the hermit Peter was of the number) escaped to the Thracian mountains; and the emperor, who respected the pilgrimage and succor of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren. For a while they remembered their faults and losses; but no sooner were they revived by the hospitable entertainment, than their venom was again inflamed; they stung their benefactor, and neither gardens, nor palaces, nor churches, were safe from their depredations. For his own safety, Alexius allured them to pass over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; but their blind impetuosity soon urged them to desert the station which he had assigned, and to rush headlong against the Turks, who occupied the road to Jerusalem. The hermit, conscious of his shame, had withdrawn from the camp to Constantinople; and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, who was worthy of a better command, attempted without success to introduce some order and prudence among the herd of savages. They separated in quest of prey, and themselves fell an easy prey to the arts of the sultan. By a rumor that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capital, Soliman [391] tempted the main body to descend into the plain of Nice: they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows; and a pyramid of bones [40] informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand had already perished, before a single city was rescued from the infidels, before their graver and more noble brethren had completed the preparations of their enterprise. [41]
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[ See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho of Frisin gen, l. ii. c. 31, in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665 666.]