Pope—­Urban II.—­ presides, and urges on the sacred war.  In the year 1095 the Pope, in his sacred robes, and in the presence of four hundred bishops and abbots, ascends the pulpit erected in the market-place, and tells the immense multitude how their faith is trodden in the dust; how the sacred relics are desecrated; and appeals alike to chivalry and religion.  More than this, he does just what Mohammed did when he urged his followers to take the sword:  he announces, in fiery language, the fullest indulgence to all who take part in the expedition,—­that all their sins shall be forgiven, and that heaven shall be opened to them.  “It is the voice of God,” they cry; “we will hasten to the deliverance of the sacred city!” Every man stimulates the passions of his neighbor.  All vie in their contributions.  The knights especially are enthusiastic, for they can continue their accustomed life without penance, and yet obtain the forgiveness of their sins.  Religious fears are turned at first into the channel of penance; and penance is made easy by the indulgence of the martial passions.  Every recruit wore a red cross, and was called croise—­cross-bearer; whence the name of the holy war.

Thus the Crusades began, at the close of the eleventh century, when William Rufus was King of England, when Henry IV. was still Emperor of Germany, when Anselm was reigning at Canterbury as spiritual head of the English Church, ten years after the great Hildebrand had closed his turbulent pontificate.

I need not detail the history of this first Crusade.  Of the two hundred thousand who set out with Peter the Hermit,—­this fiery fanatic, with no practical abilities,—­only twenty thousand succeeded in reaching even Constantinople.  The rest miserably perished by the way,—­a most disorderly rabble.  And nothing illustrates the darkness of the age more impressively than that a mere monk should have been allowed to lead two hundred thousand armed men on an enterprise of such difficulty.  How little the science of war was comprehended!  And even of the five hundred thousand men under Godfrey, Tancred, Bohemond, and other great feudal princes,—­men of rare personal valor and courage; men who led the flower of the European chivalry,—­only twenty-five thousand remained after the conquest of Jerusalem.  The glorious array of a hundred and fifty thousand horsemen, in full armor, was a miserable failure.  The lauded warriors of feudal Europe effected almost nothing.  Tasso attempted to immortalize their deeds; but how insignificant they were, compared with even Homer’s heroes!  A modern army of twenty-five thousand men could not only have put the whole five hundred thousand to rout in an hour, but could have delivered Palestine in a few mouths.  Even one of the standing armies of the sixteenth century, under such a general as Henry IV. or the Duke of Guise, could have effected more than all the crusaders of two hundred years.  The crusaders numbered many heroes, but scarcely a single general.  There was no military discipline among them:  they knew nothing of tactics or strategy; they fought pell-mell in groups, as in the contests of barons among themselves.  Individually they were gallant and brave, and performed prodigies of valor with their swords and battle-axes; but there was no direction given to their strength by leaders.