CHAP. ment to the multitudes who were oppreffed by LVIII. feudal or ecclefiaftical tyranny. Under this holy

Influence of exam

ple.

fign the peasants and burghers, who were attached to the fervitude of the glebe, might escape from an haughty lord, and tranfplant themselves and their families to a land of liberty. The monk might release himfelf from the difcipline of his convent the debtor might fufpend the accumulation of ufury, and the pursuit of his creditors ; and outlaws and malefactors of every caft might continue to brave the laws and elude the punishment of their crimes 32.

These motives were potent and numerous : when we have fingly computed their weight on the mind of each individual, we must add the infinite feries, the multiplying powers of example. and fashion, The first profelytes became the warmeft and moft effectual miffionaries of the cross: among their friends and countrymen they preached the duty, the merit, and the recompence, of their holy vow; and the most reluctant hearers were infenfibly drawn within the whirlpool of perfuafion and authority. The martial youths were fired. by the reproach or fufpicion of cowardice; the opportunity of vifiting with an army the fepulchre of Chrift, was embraced by the old and infirm, by women and children, who confulted rather their zeal than their ftrength; and thofe who in the evening had derided the folly of their companions, were the most eager, the enfuing day, to

32 See the privileges of the Crucefignati, freedom from debt, ufury, injury, fecular juftice, &c. The pope was their perpetual guardian (Ducange, tom. ii. p. 651, 652.).

tread

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tread in their footsteps. The ignorance, which CHAP. magnified the hopes, diminished the perils, of the enterprise. Since the Turkish conqueft, the paths of pilgrimage were obliterated; the chiefs themselves had an imperfect notion of the length of the way and the state of their enemies; and fuch was the ftupidity of the people, that, at the fight of the first city or castle beyond the limits of their knowledge, they were ready to ask whether that was not the Jerufalem, the term and object of their labours. Yet the more prudent of the crufaders, who were not fure that they should be fed from heaven with a fhower of quails or manna, provided themselves with those precious metals, which, in every country, are the reprefentatives of every commodity. To defray, according to their rank, the expences of the road, princes alienated their provinces, nobles their lands and castles, peasants their cattle and the inftruments of hufbandry. The value of property was depreciated by the eager competition of multitudes; while the price of arms and horfes was raised to an exorbitant height by the wants and impatience of the buyers 33. Those who remained at home, with fense and money, were enriched by the epidemical difeafe: the fovereigns acquired at a cheap rate the domains of their vaffals; and the ecclefiaftical pur

33 Guibert (p. 481.) paints in lively colours this general emotion. He was one of the few contemporaries who had genius enough to feel the astonishing fcenes that were paffing before their eyes. Erat itaque videre miraculum caro omnes emere, atque vili vendere, &c.

LVIII.

CHAP. chafers completed the payment by the affurance of their prayers. The crofs, which was commonly fewed on the garment, in cloth or filk, was infcribed by fome zealots on their fkin: an hot iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark; and a crafty monk, who fhewed the miraculous impreffion on his breast, was repaid with the popular veneration and the richeft benefices of Paleftine 34.

Departure on the firft

A. D. 1096, March,

The fifteenth of Auguft had been fixed in the crufaders, council of Clermont for the departure of the pilgrims: but the day was anticipated by the May, &c. thoughtlefs and needy crowd of plebeians; and I fhall briefly dispatch the calamities which they inflicted and fuffered, before I enter on the more ferious and fuccefsful enterprife of the chiefs. Early in the fpring, from the confines of France and Lorraine, above fixty thousand of the populace of both fexes flocked round the first miffionary of the crufade, and preffed him with clamorous importunity to lead them to the holy fepulchre. The hermit, affuming the character, without the talents or authority, of a general, impelled or obeyed the forward impulfe of his votaries along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. Their wants and numbers foon compelled them to separate, and his lieutenant, Walter the Pennylefs, a valiant though needy foldier, conducted a vanguard of pilgrims, whose condi

34 Some inftances of these ftigmata are given in the Esprit des Croifades (tom. iii. p. 169, &c.) from authors whom I have not feen.

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tion may be determined from the proportion of CHAP. eight horsemen to fifteen thoufand foot. The example and footsteps of Peter were closely pursued by another fanatic, the monk Godefcal, whose fermons had fwept away fifteen or twenty thousand peasants from the villages of Germany. Their rear was again preffed by an herd of two hundred thousand, the moft ftupid and favage refufe of the people, who mingled with their devotion a brutal licence of rapine, proftitution, and drunkennefs. Some counts and gentlemen, at the head of three thousand horfe, attended the motions of the multitude to partake in the spoil; but their genuine leaders (may we credit fuch folly?) were a goofe and a goat, who were carried in the front, and to whom these worthy Christians afcribed an infufion of the divine fpirit 3. Of these, and of other bands of enthufiafts, the first and most eafy warfare was against the Jews, the murderers of the Son of God. In the trading cities of the Mofelle and the Rhine, their colonies were numerous and rich; and they enjoyed, under the protection of the emperor and the bishops, the free exercise of their religion 36. At Verdun, Treves,

35

35 Fuit et aliud fcelus deteftabile in hac congregatione pedeftris populi ftulti et vefanæ levitatis, anferem quendam divino fpiritu afferebant afflatum, et capellam non minus eodem repletam, et has fibi duces fecundæ viæ fecerant, &c. (Albert. Aquenfis, 1. i. c. 31. p. 196.). Had these peasants founded an empire, they might have introduced, as in Egypt, the worship of animals, which their philofophic descendants would have gloffed over with fome fpecious and fubtle allegory.

36 Benjamin of Tudela describes the state of his Jewish brethren from

CHA P. Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands

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Their deftruction in Hungary and Afia, A. D. 1096,

of that unhappy people were pillaged and maffacred 37: nor had they felt a more bloody ftroke fince the perfecution of Hadrian. A remnant was faved by the firmnefs of their bifhops, who accepted a feigned and tranfient conversion; but the more obftinate Jews oppofed their fanaticism to the fanaticifm of the Christians, barricadoed their houses, and precipitating themselves, their families, and their wealth, into the rivers or the flames, difappointed the malice, or at least the avarice, of their implacable foes.

Between the frontiers of Auftria and the feat of the Byzantine monarchy, the crufaders were compelled to traverse an interval of fix hundred miles; the wild and defolate countries of Hungary 38 and Bulgaria. The foil is fruitful, and interfected with rivers; but it was then covered with moraffes and forefts, which fpread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceafed to exercise his dominion over the earth. Both nations had imbibed the rudiments of Christianity; the Hungarians were ruled by their native princes;

from Cologne along the Rhine: they were rich, generous, learned, hofpitable, and lived in the eager hope of the Meffiah (Voyage, tom. i. p. 243-245. par Baratier). In feventy years (he wrote about A. D. 1170) they had recovered from thefe maffacres.

37 Thefe maffacres and depredations on the Jews, which were renewed at each crusade, are coolly related. It is true, that St. Bernard (epift. 363. tom. i. p. 329.) admonishes the Oriental Franks, non funt perfequendi Judæi, non funt trucidandi. The contrary doctrine had been preached by a rival monk.

38 See the contemporary description of Hungary in Otho of Frifingen, 1. ii. c. 31. in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. vi. p. 665, 666.

the