nt them back to their own country. While these events were
taking place, fresh hordes were issuing from the woods and wilds of
Germany, all bent for the Holy Land. They were commanded by a fanatical
priest, named Gottschalk, who, like Gautier and Peter the Hermit, took
his way through Hungary. History is extremely meagre in her details of
the conduct and fate of this host, which amounted to at least one
hundred thousand men. Robbery and murder seem to have journeyed with
them, and the poor Hungarians were rendered almost desperate by their
numbers and rapacity. Karloman, the king of the country, made a bold
effort to get rid of them; for the resentment of his people had arrived
at such a height, that nothing short of the total extermination of the
crusaders would satisfy them. Gottschalk had to pay the penalty, not
only for the ravages of his own bands, but for those of the swarms that
had come before him. He and his army were induced, by some means or
other, to lay down their arms: the savage Hungarians, seeing them thus
defenceless, set upon them, and slaughtered them in great numbers. How
many escaped their arrows, we are not informed; but not one of them
reached Palestine.

Other swarms, under nameless leaders, issued from Germany and France,
more brutal and more frantic than any that had preceded them. Their
fanaticism surpassed by far the wildest freaks of the followers of the
Hermit. In bands, varying in numbers from one to five thousand, they
traversed the country in all directions, bent upon plunder and
massacre. They wore the symbol of the crusade upon their shoulders, but
inveighed against the folly of proceeding to the Holy Land to destroy
the Turks, while they left behind them so many Jews, the still more
inveterate enemies of Christ. They swore fierce vengeance against this
unhappy race, and murdered all the Hebrews they could lay their hands
on, first subjecting them to the most horrible mutilation. According
to the testimony of Albert Aquensis, they lived among each other in the
most shameless profligacy, and their vice was only exceeded by their
superstition. Whenever they were in search of Jews, they were preceded
by a goose and goat, which they believed to be holy, and animated with
divine power to discover the retreats of the unbelievers. In Germany
alone they slaughtered more than a thousand Jews, notwithstanding all
the efforts of the clergy to save them. So dreadful was the cruelty of
their to