THE CRUSADES. 313 



their property upon the Church, and crowded to the 

 Holy Land. 



While they thus lived at Jerusalem and waited for the 

 second coming, continually looking up at the sky and 

 expecting it to open, there came instead, a host of men 

 with yellow faces and oblique slit-shaped eyes, who 

 took the Holy city by assault, drove the Arabs out of 

 Syria, killed many pilgrims, stripped them of all their 

 money, and if they found none outside their bodies, 

 probed them with daggers, or administered emetics in 

 the hope of finding some within. When the pilgrims 

 returned, they related their sufferings, and showed their 

 scars. The anger of Christendom was aroused. A 

 crusade was preached, and the enthusiasm which every- 

 where prevailed, enabled the Church to exercise un- 

 usual powers. The Pope decreed that the men of the 

 cross should be hindered by none. Creditor might 

 not arrest ; master might not detain. To those who 

 joined the army of the Church, absolution was given ; 

 and paradise was promised in the Moslem style to those 

 who died in the campaign. The tidings flew from 

 castle to castle, and from town to town ; there was 

 not a land, however remote, which escaped the infec- 

 tion of the time. In the homely language of the 

 monk of Malmesbury, " the Welshman left his hunt- 

 ing, the Scotch his fellowship with vermin, the Dane 

 his drinking party, the Norwegian his raw fish." 

 Europe was torn up from its foundations and hurled 

 upon Asia. Society was dissolved. Monks not wait- 

 ing for the permission of their superiors, cast off their 

 black gowns and put on the buff jerkin, the boots 

 and the sword. The serf left his plough in the furrow, 

 the shepherd left his flock in the field. Men servants 

 and maid servants ran from the castle. Wives insisted 



