respect to their future bliss rather than their
present duty; and are therefore continually careless of its direct
commands, with easy excuse to themselves for disobedience to them.
Whereas the Norman, finding in his own heart an irresistible impulse
to action, and perceiving himself to be set, with entirely strong
body, brain, and will, in the midst of a weak and dissolute confusion
of all things, takes from the Bible instantly into his conscience
every exhortation to Do and to Govern; and becomes, with all his might
and understanding, a blunt and rough servant, knecht, or knight of
God, liable to much misapprehension, of course, as to the services
immediately required of him, but supposing, since the whole make of
him, outside and in, is a soldier's, that God meant him for a soldier,
and that he is to establish, by main force, the Christian faith and
works all over the world so far as he comprehends them; not merely
with the Mahometan indignation against spiritual error, but with a
sound and honest soul's dislike of material error, and resolution to
extinguish _that_, even if perchance found in the spiritual persons to
whom, in their office, he yet rendered total reverence.

Which force and faith in him I may best illustrate by merely putting
together the broken paragraphs of Sismondi's account of the founding
of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily: virtually contemporary with the
conquest of England.

"The Normans surpassed all the races of the west in their ardour for
pilgrimages. They would not, to go into the Holy Land, submit to the
monotony[17] of a long sea voyage--the rather that they found not
on the Mediterranean the storms or dangers they had rejoiced to
encounter on their own sea. They traversed by land the whole of
France and Italy, trusting to their swords to procure the necessary
subsistence,[18] if the charity of the faithful did not enough provide
for it with alms. The towns of Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, and Bari, held
constant commerce with Syria; and frequent miracles, it was believed,
illustrated the Monte Cassino (St. Benedict again!) on the road of
Naples, and the Mount of Angels (Garganus) above Bari." (Querceta
Gargani--verily, laborant; _now_, et orant.) "The pilgrims wished
to visit during their journey the monasteries built on these two
mountains, and therefore nearly always, either going or returning to
the Holy Land, passed through Magna Graecia.

[Footnote 17: I give Sismondi's idea as it stands,