There follow the Crusades.  These splendid follies have much to do with the wealth and greatness of Genoa.  It was from her port that Godfrey de Bouillon set sail in the Pomella as a pilgrim in 1095.  He appears to have been insulted at the very gate of Jerusalem, or, as some say, at the door of the Holy Sepulchre.  At any rate he returned to Europe, where Urban ii, urged by Peter the Hermit, was already half inclined to proclaim the First Crusade.  Godfrey’s story seems to have decided him; and, indeed, so moving was his tale, that the crowd who heard him cried out urging the Pope to act, Dieu le veult, the famous and fatal cry that was to lead uncounted thousands to death, and almost to widow Europe.  In Genoa the war was preached furiously and with success by the Bishops of Gratz and Arles in S. Siro.  An army of enthusiasts, monks, beggars, soldiers, adventurers, and thieves, moved partly by the love of Christ, partly by love of gain, gathered in Genoa.  With them was Godfrey.  They sailed in 1097:  they besieged Antioch and took it.  Content it might seem with this success, or fearful in that stony place of venturing too far from the sea, the Genoese returned, not empty.  For on the way back, storm-bound perhaps in Myra, they sacked a Greek monastery there, carrying off for their city the dust of St. John Baptist, which to-day is still in their keeping.

Was it the hope of loot that caused Genoa in 1099 to send even a larger company to Judaea under the great Guglielmo Embriaco, whose tower to-day is all that is left of what must once have been a city of towers?  Who knows?  He landed with his Genoese at Joppa, burnt his ships as Caesar did, though doubtless he thought not of it, and marching on Jerusalem found the Christians still unsuccessful and the Tomb of Christ, as now, ringed by pagan spears.  But the Genoese were not to be denied.  If the valour of Europe was of no avail, the contrivance of the sea, the cunning of Genoa must bring down Saladin.  So they set to work and made a tower of scaffolding with ropes, with timbers, with spars saved from their ships.  When this was ready, slowly, not without difficulty, surely not without joy, they hauled and heaved and drove it over the burning dust, the immense wilderness of stones and refuse that surrounded Jerusalem.  Then they swarmed up with songs, with shouting, and leapt on to the walls, and over the ramparts into the Holy City, covered with blood, filled with the fury of battle, wounded, dying, mad with hatred, to the Tomb of Jesus, the empty sepulchre of God.

Then eight days after came that strange election, when we offered the throne of Palestine to Godfrey of Bouillon; but he refused to wear a crown of gold where his Saviour had worn one of thorns, so we proclaimed him Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.