118 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



intolerable sufferings of the pilgrims ; and in the most fiery language harangued 

 his audiences, urging them on to revenge against the Saracens. As a final 

 argument he usually produced a written document, which he alleged he had 

 seen falling from the skies, and which urged the friends of the Church to im- 

 mediate action. These inflammatory appeals were not m.ade in vain. They 

 (juickened the zeal of his audiences, and rendered more rancorous than ever 

 their hatred of the i\[ahometans. 



In the meantime Urban was aiding the work by other agencies. He as- 

 sembled a church council at Piacenza. Thirty thousand persons attended it. 

 The excitement was immense, but no definitive action was had. During the 

 next year (1095) another council was called at Clermont, in France. Here 

 large bodies of the nobility offered themselves to the pope. Urban elected a 

 chief, whom he ordered to kneel down while he invested him with the red cross 

 lapon the right shoulder. The rest of the knights were decorated with the 

 Ham<* sign, whence their appellation of Knights of the Cross. Godfrey of 

 Bouillon, duke of Lorraine, took the command. Every earthly object was sacri- 

 ficed for a place in the army. When men had no money they sold their lands 

 and castles to the cloisters for a mere trifle ; and when they had nothing to 

 neW, thej entered the service of the knights. 



The commander fixed upon the month of J^ugust, 1096, for the commence- 

 ment of the march. The impetuous Peter of Amiens, however, impatient 

 of the slightest delay, at once set forward with 40,000 men, whose ranks 

 soon swelled to 80,000. Peter divided his command with Gautiers, or Wal- 

 ter, a Burgundian knight, who being poor, bore the name of Walter the Pen- 

 nyless. The wild multitudes consisted mostly of natives of France, Lorraine, 

 and 'Lombardy, though in their march they absorbed vast numbers in 

 South vGermany, Hungary, and Bulgaria. They felt at liberty to tax 

 freely the inhabitants of those countries through which they passed ; and 

 when their exactions were resisted, as in Hungary, where the inhabitants 

 were less ready to support tlie disorderly multitude, they had recourse to 

 violence, ssid thousands were killed in the conflicts which ensued, so that 

 on his arrival at Constantinople^ P-eter had scarcely one fourth of his forces 

 remaining- 



The Germans had thus far stood aloof from the crusades, but were at 

 length induced to join with the Italians and French. To quicken the 

 hesitating, numerous prodigies amd omens were at hand. A comet 

 appeared, and marvellous sights were seen in the sky; and, as usual, the 

 clergy availed them-selves of these phenomena to inflame and impel the 

 superstitious masses. A report prevailed that Charlemagne had risen from 

 the dead, and was commanding the crusadei'S in person. The Saxon 

 Volkmarr marshalled 12,000 of his countrymen-; the priest Gottshalk raised 

 a considerable force in Fi'anconia ; and Count Emico of Leiningen, collected 

 another on the Rhine. Prior to their departure for Constantinople, they 

 began a furious and unprovoked persecution of the Jews, great multitudes 

 of whom fell In the districts of the Rhine. Gottshalk and his fanatics, 

 however, met a cruel fate at the hands of the Hungarians, not more than 

 one third of the Franeonian crusaders being so fortunate as to reach 

 290 



