to have practised the
same austerities as its master, this singular person rode up and down
the land, rousing everywhere as he went the wildest enthusiasm.
Miserable as he seemed in body, he was a man of active and earnest mind,
of quick intellect, keen and penetrating eye, and an ease, fluency, and
force of speech that gave him the power to sway multitudes and stir up
the soul of Europe as no man before him had ever done.

This man was Peter the Hermit, the father of the Crusades. He had been a
soldier in his youth; afterwards a married man and father of a family;
later a monk and recluse; then a pilgrim to Jerusalem, now he was an
envoy from Simeon, patriarch of Jerusalem, to arouse the nations of
Europe with the story of the cruelties to which Christian pilgrims were
subjected by the barbarous Turks.

The pope, Urban II., had blessed his enterprise; and then, dressed and
mounted as described, and bearing in his arms a huge cross, the
inspired envoy rode throughout the Teutonic lands, everywhere recounting
with vehement speech and with the force of fiery indignation the
sufferings of the Christians and the barbarities of the Turks, and
calling on all pious souls to take arms in defence of the Holy Sepulchre
and for the emancipation of the Holy Land from infidel control.

"We saw him at that time," says Guibert de Nogent; his contemporary,
"scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere. The people crowded
around him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity by
such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever rendered
to any other person. In all that he did or said he seemed to have in him
something divine, insomuch that people went so far as to pluck hairs
from his mule to keep as relics."

Never had mankind been more excited. All Europe was aroused, indignant,
fiery. The Holy Sepulchre must be rescued, Palestine must be in the
hands of the Christians, the infidel Turks must be driven from that
sacred soil and punished for the indignities they had heaped upon
pilgrims, Europe must march to Asia, and win salvation by driving the
unbelieving barbarian from the land sanctified by the feet of Christ.

Everywhere men rose, seized their arms and prepared for the march, of
whose length and dangers few of them dreamed. "The most distant islands
and savage countries," says William of Malmesbury, "were inspired by
this ardent passion. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scotchman his
fellowshi