[1095-1096 A.D.]
Peter the Hermit traversed Italy, crossed the Alps, visited all parts of France, and the greatest portion of Europe, inflaming all hearts with the same zeal that consumed his own. He travelled mounted on a mule, with a crucifix in his hand, his feet bare, his head uncovered, his body girded with a thick cord, covered with a long frock, and a hermit’s hood of the coarsest stuff. The singularity of his appearance was a spectacle for the people, whilst the austerity of his manners, his charity, and the moral doctrines that he preached caused him to be revered as a saint wherever he went.
He went from city to city, from province to province, working upon the courage of some and upon the piety of others; sometimes haranguing from the pulpits of the churches, sometimes preaching in the high-roads or public places. His eloquence was animated and impressive, and filled with those vehement apostrophes which produce such effects upon an uncultivated multitude. He described the profanation of the holy places, and the blood of the Christians shed in torrents in the streets of Jerusalem. He invoked, by turns, heaven, the saints, the angels, whom he called upon to bear witness to the truth of what he told them. He apostrophised Mount Zion, the rock of Calvary, and the Mount of Olives, which he made to resound with sobs and groans. When he had exhausted speech in painting the miseries of the faithful, he showed the spectators the crucifix which he carried with him; sometimes striking his breast and wounding his flesh, sometimes shedding torrents of tears. The people followed the steps of Peter in crowds. The preacher of the holy war was received everywhere as a messenger from God.
THE APPEAL OF THE EMPEROR ALEXIUS
In the midst of this general excitement, Alexius Comnenus, who was threatened by the Turks, sent ambassadors to the pope, to solicit the assistance of the Latins. “Without the prompt assistance of all the Christian states,” he wrote, “Constantinople must fall under the most frightful domination of the Turks.” He reminded the princes of Christianity of the holy relics preserved in Constantinople, and conjured them to save so sacred an assemblage of venerated objects from the profanation of the infidels. After having set forth the splendour and the riches of his capital, he exhorted the knights and barons to come and defend them; he offered them his treasures as the reward of their valour, and painted in glowing colours the beauty of the Greek women, whose love would repay the exploits of his liberators. Thus, nothing was spared that could flatter the passions or arouse the enthusiasm of the warriors of the West.
COUNCILS OF PLACENTIA AND CLERMONT
In compliance with the prayers of Alexius and the wishes of the faithful, the sovereign pontiff convoked a council at Placentia, in order there to expose the dangers of the Greek and Latin churches in the East. The preachings of Peter had so prepared the minds and animated the zeal of the faithful, that more than two hundred bishops and archbishops, four thousand ecclesiastics, and thirty thousand of the laity obeyed the invitation of the holy see. The council was so numerous that it was obliged to be held in a plain in the neighbourhood of the city. The Council of Placentia, however, came to no determination upon the war against the infidels. The deliverance of the Holy Land was far from being the only object of this council: the declarations of the empress Adelaide, who came to reveal her own shame and that of her husband, anathemas against the emperor of Germany and the anti-pope Guibert, occupied, during several days, the attention of Urban and the assembled fathers.
A new council assembled at Clermont, in Auvergne. Before it gave up its attention to the holy war, the council at first considered the reform of the clergy and ecclesiastical discipline; and it then occupied itself in placing a restraint upon the license of wars among individuals. In these barbarous times even simple knights never thought of redressing their injuries by any other means than arms. It was not an uncommon thing to see families, for the slightest causes, commence a war against each other that would last during several generations; Europe was distracted with troubles occasioned by these hostilities. In the impotence of the laws and the governments, the church often exerted its salutary influence to restore tranquillity; several councils had placed their interdict upon private wars during four days of the week, and their decrees had invoked the vengeance of heaven against disturbers of the public peace. The Council of Clermont renewed the Truce of God, and threatened all who refused “to accept peace and justice” with the thunders of the church. One of its decrees placed widows, orphans, merchants, and labourers under the safeguard of religion. They declared, as they had already done in other councils, that the churches should be so many inviolable sanctuaries, and that crosses, even, placed upon the high-roads, should become points of refuge against violence.
Humanity and reason must applaud such salutary decrees; but the sovereign pontiff, although he presented himself as the defender of the sanctity of marriage, did not merit the same praises when he pronounced in this council an anathema against Philip I. But such was then the general infatuation, that no one was astonished that a king of France should be excommunicated in the very bosom of his own kingdom. The sentence of Urban could not divert attention from an object that seemed much more imposing, and the excommunication of Philip scarcely holds a place in the history of the Council of Clermont. The faithful, gathered from all the provinces, had but one single thought; they spoke of nothing but the evils the Christians endured in Palestine, and saw nothing but the war which was about to be declared against the infidels. Enthusiasm and fanaticism, which always increase in large assemblies, were carried to their full height. Urban at length satisfied the impatience of the faithful—impatience which he, perhaps, had adroitly excited, and which was the surest guarantee of success.
The council held its tenth sitting in the great square or place of Clermont, which was soon filled by an immense crowd. Followed by his cardinals, the pope ascended a species of throne which had been prepared for him; at his side was Peter the Hermit, clad in that whimsical and uncouth garb which had everywhere drawn upon him the attention and the respect of the multitude. Urban, who spoke after Peter, represented, as he had done, the holy places as profaned by the domination of the infidels.