[1096-1147 A.D.]
The 15th of August had been fixed in the Council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims; but the day was anticipated by the thoughtless and needy crowd of plebeians. Early in the spring, from the confines of France and Lorraine, above sixty thousand of the populace of both sexes, flocked round the first missionary of the Crusades, and pressed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the Holy Sepulchre. The hermit, assuming the character, without the talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the forward impulse of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers soon compelled them to separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the Penniless, a valiant though needy soldier, conducted a vanguard of pilgrims, whose condition may be determined from the proportion of eight horsemen to fifteen thousand foot.
The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godescal [or Gottschalk], whose sermons had swept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany. Their rear was again pressed by a herd of two hundred thousand, the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal license of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness. Some counts and gentlemen, at the head of three thousand horse, attended the motions of the multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may we credit such folly?) were a goose and a goat, who were carried in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians ascribed an infusion of the divine Spirit. Of these, and of other bands of enthusiasts, the first and most easy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of the Moselle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich; and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the bishops, the free exercise of their religion. At Verdun, Trèves, Mainz, Speier, Worms, many thousands of that unhappy people were pillaged and massacred; nor had they felt a more bloody stroke since the persecution of Hadrian. A remnant was saved by the firmness of their bishops, who accepted a feigned and transient conversion; but the more obstinate Jews opposed their fanaticism to the fanaticism of the Christians, barricaded their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and their wealth into the rivers or the flames, disappointed the malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.
PETER THE HERMIT AND HIS RABBLE
Between the frontiers of Austria and the seat of the Byzantine monarchy the crusaders were compelled to traverse an interval of six hundred miles—the wild and desolate countries of Hungary and Bulgaria. 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 rein to indignation and revenge. But their ignorance of the country, of war, and of discipline exposed them to every snare. The Greek prefect of Bulgaria commanded a regular force; 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. 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 succour of the Latins, conducted them by secure and easy journeys to Constantinople, and advised them to await the arrival of their brethren.
For awhile 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 Bosporus; 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 of 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 rumour that their foremost companions were rioting in the spoils of his capital, Suleiman tempted the main body to descend into the plain of Nicæa; they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows; and a pyramid of bones informed their companions of the place of their defeat. Of the first crusaders, three hundred thousand[48] 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.
THE LEADERS OF THE FIRST CRUSADE
[1096-1097 A.D.]
None of the great sovereigns of Europe embarked their persons in the First Crusade. The religious ardour was more strongly felt by the princes of the second order, who held an important place in the feudal system. The first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey de Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the crusaders, if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was descended in the female line.
In the service of Henry IV, he bore the great standard of the empire, and pierced with his lance the breast of Rudolf the rebel king; Godfrey was the first who ascended the walls of Rome; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps his remorse for bearing arms against the pope, confirmed an early resolution of visiting the Holy Sepulchre, not as a pilgrim but a deliverer. His valour was matured by prudence and moderation; his piety, though blind, was sincere; and in the tumult of a camp he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent. Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals. Godfrey de Bouillon was accompanied by his two brothers—by Eustace the elder, who had succeeded to the county of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more ambiguous virtue.