THE

HISTORY

OF THE

DECLINE AND FALL

OF THE

ROMAN EMPIRE.

CHA P. LVIII.

Origin and Numbers of the firft Crufade.-Characters of the Latin Princes.-Their March to Conftantinople.-Policy of the Greek Emperor Alexius.-Conquet of Nice, Antioch, and Jerufalem, by the Franks.-Deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre-Godfrey of Bouillon, First King of Jerufalem. -Inftitutions of the French or Latin Kingdoms.

A by the Turks, the holy fepulchre was vifited by an

BOUT twenty years after the conqueft of Jerufalem CHA P.

LVIII.

The first

Peter the

hermit of the name of Peter, a native of Amiens, in the province of Picardy (1) in France. His refentment and crufade, fympathy were excited by his own injuries and the oppref- A. D. fion of the Chriftian name; he mingled his tears with 1095-1999. thofe of the patriarch, and earnestly enquired, if no hopes Hermit. of relief could be entertained from the Greek Emperors of the Eaft. The patriarch expofed the vices and weakness of the fucceffors of Constantine. "I will roufe," exVOL. VI. claimed

B

(1) Whimsical enough is the origin of the name of Picards, and from thence of Picardie, which does not date earlier than A. D. 1200. It was an academical joke, an epithet firft applied to the quarrelfome humour of those ftudents, in the university of Paris, who came from the frontier of France and Flanders (Valefii Notitia Galliarum, p. 447. Longuerue, Défcription de la France, p. 54.).