nce and adventure had laid hold of the imagination to an
extraordinary degree. The recital of wondrous adventures no longer
satisfied the listener; he yearned to participate in them. The young
knight, trained in athletics and courtesy, and possessing a little
knowledge of biblical history, left his father's castle to face the
unknown world. There was a sanctuary, mysterious, almost supernal,
carefully guarded in the dense forest of an inaccessible mountain. A
knight whose heart was pure, and who had dedicated himself to the
lifelong service of the divine, could find it; but he would have to
wander for many years, through forests and glens and strange countries,
alone and solitary, before his eyes would behold the most sacred relic
in the world, the Holy Grail.

The time was ripe for a great event, a universal and overwhelming
enterprise which could absorb the passionate longing. Maybe that the
wisdom of the great popes--half unconsciously, certainly, and under the
pressure of the age, but yet led by an unerring instinct--guided this
stream into the bed of the Church; the vague craving found a definite
object: the Crusades were organised. The Holy Sepulchre, the most sacred
spot on earth, was in the hands of the heathens; it was despised and
defiled--what greater thing could a man do than hasten to its rescue
and wrest it from the grasp of pagans, giants and sorcerers? In the
fantastic imagination of the men of that period the Lord's sepulchre was
nothing but the earthly realisation of their yearning for the Holy
Grail.

As far back as A.D. 1000 Gerbert had sent messengers to all nations,
exhorting them to hoist their banners and march with him to the Holy
Land. It had been prophesied that he should be the first to read Mass in
Jerusalem; a few ships were actually equipped at Pisa--the first attempt
at a Crusade. But at that time Europe was not yet quite prepared for the
extraordinary, almost incomprehensible, enterprise--the conquest of a
country which hardly anybody had ever seen and in which nobody had any
practical interest. Before such an enterprise could be carried out all
hearts must be filled by that uncontrollable and yet vague longing, so
characteristic of the great period of fantasy. The suggestion that the
wealth of the East, exciting the greed of the western nations, led to
the Crusades, is an absolutely indefensible idea. Doubtless, rumours of
the fabulous treasure of the Orient had stirred the imagination