350 MUNRO— THE POPES AND THE CRUSADES. 



the blows. On one occasion when some in his audience tried to 

 secure as relics bits of his garments, he seized upon the most pre- 

 sumptuous and proclaimed that his own clothes were not sacred 

 objects, but that he would and did sanctify the garments of the man 

 he held, whose clothes were at once torn from his body, in bits to 

 be preserved as relics. Such preachers naturally appealed to the 

 common people, who seldom heard any sermons, and had a great 

 influence in kindling religious zeal. The preaching of the crusades 

 frequently led many to enter monasteries to expiate their sins, in- 

 stead of taking the Cross. Caesar of Heisterbach tells of the 

 marvelous effect of Bernard of Clairvaux's sermons and states that 

 Bernard sent all who were fit into monasteries ; to the others he 

 gave the Cross. After the fall of Jerusalem such a wave of piety 

 spread over western Europe that wars were abandoned for a time 

 and the cardinals took a vow to go afoot until the Holy City was 

 rescued from the infidel. In the next century a most striking out- 

 burst of religious enthusiasm led to the Children's Crusade, which 

 was to be a missionary movement, not a military campaign. Thus, 

 undoubtedly, through the preaching of the crusades there was a 

 great amount of religious fervor, some real piety and reformation 

 in manners, and a greater interest in the Holy Land and all con- 

 nected with it. This would redound to the credit of the head of the 

 Church and increase his influence and power. 



The Popes offered privileges, both spiritual and temporal, to 

 all who took the Cross. Because of the intense enthusiasm for the 

 crusades and also because of the weakness of most of the monarchs 

 in Western Europe during the first half of the twelfth century, the 

 Church, and especially the Pope, were allowed through these privi- 

 leges to encroach upon the sphere of the temporal authorities. All 

 crusaders were given the protection of the ecclesiastical courts ; thus 

 when a vassal took the cross he might escape to a considerable extent 

 from the jurisdiction of his feudal lord. Moreover, his family and 

 property were taken under the protection of the Church and in this 

 way many cases were taken from the feudal courts. In his privilege 

 for the Second Crusade Eugene III. gave vassals who took the 

 Cross, the right, under certain circumstances, to mortgage their fiefs 



