all renounced their wealth and position to become monks. 

 Nobles had left lands and castles to the Church, the 

 deeds being drawn up by monks and witnessed by prelates 

 and sovereigns, as though no day of reckoning was at 

 hand, the form being invariably as follows : " Seeing that 

 the end of the world is now approaching, and that every 



day accumulates fresh miseries, I, Baron (or 



King ), for the good of my soul, give to the 



monastery of ," etc. The Church, which before 



was poor, now became gorged with wealth, and the 

 ignorance and credulity of the people secured the treasures 

 to the now powerful prelates. 



During this period of excitement and terror the number 

 of pilgrimages to the Holy Land had enormously in- 

 creased, so much so that the Saracen masters of Jeru- 

 salem, with the view of putting a stop to the now trouble- 

 some and inconvenient influx of Christians to the Holy 

 City, commenced to persecute the pilgrims, thus creating 

 a very great ill-feeling against themselves throughout 

 Europe. Peter the Hermit, a monk of Amiens, took up 

 the cause of his ill-treated brethren, and forthwith com- 

 menced to preach a holy war against the Saracens of 

 Syria, Pope Urban II. and his priests promising absolu- 

 tion from all sin to those who took up arms against the 

 Infidel. A vast multitude of rabble from all parts of 

 Europe soon started on their march to the Holy Land, 

 being divided into three large armies, one led by Walter 

 the Penniless, another by Peter the Hermit, and the 

 third by Gottschalk, a monk. The armies gave them- 

 selves up to unheard-of iniquities, spreading poverty and 

 misery on all sides in their march, braining all who re- 

 fused to give up their provisions and property to them, 

 and, at last, arriving in Constantinople footsore and 

 diseased, having left two-thirds of their comrades to die 

 of starvation on the road. Crossing over into Syria, they 

 met the Saracen foe, who quickly put an end to their 

 sufferings by annihilating the whole lot. Seven other 

 Crusades followed, one composed altogether of children, 

 who, the priests declared, were to be the inheritors of 

 the Holy Land, it being now apparent that full-grown 

 men were too sinful to conquer the Infidel. The army 

 of children was accordingly shipped off to destroy the 



