The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

Without searching for any thing preternatural, the vision is not at all difficult to believe, though the place of its occurrence seems to have been fictitious. Nothing could be more natural than for Peter the Hermit, with his mind full of the mission he was about to undertake, to dream that the Being in whose cause he believed himself engaged appeared to encourage him, and to hasten his enterprise; and it is easy to conceive that, with full confidence in this manifestation of heavenly favour, he should set forth upon his journey with enthusiastic zeal.

Bearing the letter of the patriarch, Peter now returned in haste to Italy, and sought out the pope, to declare the miseries of the church in the Holy Land, and to propose the means of its deliverance. Urban II., who then occupied the apostolic chair, had inherited from Gregory wars and contestations with the emperor Henry IV., and was at the same time embroiled with the weak and luxurious Philip I. of France, on the subject of that king’s adulterous intercourse with Bertrade. He, as well as Gregory, had taken refuge in Apulia and Calabria, and had thrown himself upon the protection of the famous Robert Guiscard, who readily granted him the aid of that powerful mind which made the utmost parts of the earth tremble.[94]

It does not correctly appear at what place Urban sojourned at the time of Peter’s arrival in Italy.[95] His whole support was, evidently, still in the family of Guiscard; and it seems that with Boemond, Prince of Tarentum, the gallant and chivalrous son of Robert, he first held council upon the hermit’s[96] great and interesting proposal, before he determined on the line of conduct to be pursued.

One of the historians of the crusades,[97] attributing perhaps somewhat too much the spirit of modern politics to an age whose genius was of very different quality, supposes that the course determined on by the pope and his ally was, in fact, principally a shrewd plot to fix Urban firmly in the Vatican, and to forward Boemond’s ambitious views in Greece. It seems to me, however, that such a supposition is perfectly irreconcilable with the subsequent conduct of either. The pope shortly after threw himself into the midst of his enemies, to hold a council on the subject of the crusades; and Boemond abandoned every thing in Europe to carry on the holy war in Palestine. It is much more natural to imagine that the spirit of their age governed both the prelate and the warrior—the enthusiasm of religion the one, and the enthusiasm of Chivalry the other.

However that may be, Peter the Hermit met with a most encouraging reception from the pope. The sufferings of his fellow-christians brought tears from the prelate’s eyes; the general scheme of the crusade was sanctioned[98] instantly by his authority; and, promising his quick and active concurrence, he sent him on, the pilgrim to preach the deliverance of the Holy Land through all the countries of Europe. Peter wanted neither zeal nor activity[99]—from town to town, from province to province, from country to country, he spread the cry of vengeance on the Turks, and deliverance to Jerusalem! The warlike spirit of the people was at its height; the genius of Chivalry was in the vigour of its early youth; the enthusiasm of religion had now a great and terrible object before it, and all the gates of the human heart were open to the eloquence of the preacher. That eloquence was not exerted in vain; nations rose at his word and grasped the spear; and it only wanted some one to direct and point the great enterprise that was already determined.

In the mean time the pope did not forget his promise; and while Peter the Hermit spread the inspiration throughout Europe,[100] Urban called together a council at Placentia, to which deputies were admitted from the emperor of Constantinople, who displayed the progress of the Turks, and set forth the danger to all Christendom of suffering their arms to advance unopposed. The opinion of the assembly was universally favourable to the crusade; and trusting to the popularity of the measure, and the indications of support which he had already met with, the pope determined to cross the Alps and to hold a second council in the heart of Gaul.

The ostensible object of this council was to regulate the state of the church, and to correct abuses; but the great object was, in fact, the crusade. It is useless to investigate the motives which gave Urban II. courage to summon a council, destined, among other things, to solemnly reprobate the dissolute conduct of Philip of France, in the midst of dominions, if not absolutely feudatory to the crown[101] of that monarch, at least bound to it by friendship and alliance. Whether it arose from fortitude of a just cause, or from reliance on political calculation, the prelate’s judgment was proved by the event to be right. After one or two changes in regard to the place of meeting, the council was assembled at Clermont, in Auvergne,[102] and was composed of an unheard-of multitude of priests, princes, and nobles, both of France and Germany, all willing and eager to receive the pope’s injunctions with reverence and obedience. After having terminated the less important affairs which formed the apparent business of the meeting, and which occupied the deliberation of seven days, Urban, one of the most eloquent men of the age, came forth from the church[103] in which the principal ecclesiastics were assembled, and addressed the immense concourse which had been gathered into one of the great squares, no building being large enough to contain the number.

The prelate[104] then, with the language best calculated to win the hearts of all his hearers, displayed the miseries of the Christians in the Holy Land. He addressed the multitude as a people peculiarly favoured by God, in the gift of courage, strength, and true faith. He told them that their brethren in the east were trampled under the feet of infidels, to whom God had not granted the light of his Holy Spirit—that fire, plunder, and the sword had desolated completely the fair plains of Palestine—that her children were led away captive, or enslaved, or died under tortures too horrible to recount—that the women of their land were subjected to the impure passions of the pagans, and that God’s own altar, the symbols of salvation, and the precious relics of the saints were all desecrated by the gross and filthy abomination of a race of heathens. To whom, then, he asked—to whom did it belong to punish such crimes, to wipe away such impurities, to destroy the oppressors, and to raise up the oppressed? To whom, if not to those who heard him, who had received from God strength, and power, and greatness of soul; whose ancestors had been the prop of Christendom, and whose kings had put a barrier to the progress of infidels? “Think!” he cried, “of the sepulchre of Christ our Saviour possessed by the foul heathen!—think of all the sacred places dishonoured by their sacrilegious impurities!—O brave knights, offspring of invincible fathers, degenerate not from your ancient blood! remember the virtues of your ancestors, and if you feel held back from the course before you by the soft ties of wives, of children, of parents, call to mind the words of our Lord himself: ‘Whosoever loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. Whosoever shall abandon for my name’s sake his house, or his brethren, or his sisters, or his father, or his mother, or his wife, or his children, or his lands, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life.’”

The prelate then went on to point out the superior mundane advantages which those might obtain who took the Cross. He represented their own country as poor and arid, and Palestine as a land flowing with milk and honey; and, blending the barbarous ideas of a dark age with the powerful figures of enthusiastic eloquence, he proceeded—“Jerusalem is in the centre of this fertile land; and its territories, rich above all others, offer, so to speak, the delights of Paradise. That land, too, the Redeemer of the human race rendered illustrious by his advent, honoured by his residence, consecrated by his passion, repurchased by his death, signalized by his sepulture. That royal city, Jerusalem—situated in the centre of the world—held captive by infidels, who deny the God that honoured her—now calls on you and prays for her deliverance. From you—from you above all people she looks for comfort, and she hopes for aid; since God has granted to you, beyond other nations, glory and might in arms. Take, then, the road before you in expiation of your sins, and go, assured that, after the honour of this world shall have passed away, imperishable glory shall await you even in the kingdom of heaven!”

Loud shouts of “God wills it! God wills it!” pronounced simultaneously by the whole people, in all the different dialects and languages of which the multitude was composed, here interrupted for a moment the speech of the prelate: but, gladly seizing the time, Urban proceeded, after having obtained silence, “Dear brethren, to-day is shown forth in you that which the Lord has said by his evangelist—‘When two or three shall be assembled in my name, there shall I be in the midst of them;’ for if the Lord God had not been in your souls, you would not all have pronounced the same words; or, rather, God himself pronounced them by your lips, for he it was that put them in your hearts. Be they, then, your war-cry in the combat, for those words came forth from God.—Let the army of the Lord, when it rushes upon his enemies, shout but that one cry, ‘God wills it! God wills it!’[105]