If it had not been for the Crusades, something else must have happened to relieve the unbearable tension.  The world was longing for a great deed, a deed overstepping the border-line of metaphysics, and its enthusiasm was sufficient guarantee of achievement.  In the case of the individual, vanity and boastfulness played no mean part.  Thus the Austrian minnesinger, Ulrich of Lichtenstein, proposed taking the Cross “not to serve God but to please his mistress.”  It is quite probable, though not historically proved, that this veritable Don Quixote dreamed of decorating the Holy Sepulchre with his lady’s handkerchief, but in the end he remained at home.  A journey to foreign lands, to return after years of yearning for the beloved, her loyalty, or her treachery, supplied the romantic imagination of the age with endless material.  The story of the Count von Gleichen and his two wives is famous to this day.  A charming Provencal song tells of a maid who, day after day, sat by a fountain weeping for her lover.  At this spot they had bidden farewell to each other, and here she was awaiting his return.  One day a pilgrim arrived, and she at once asked for news of her knight.  The pilgrim knew him and had a message for her.  After a short conversation he threw back his cowl and drew the delighted maiden into his arms, for it was he himself, her lover, who after many years of absence had returned and was first visiting the spot where, years ago, he had said good-bye to her.

But there was another motive, a religious one, which, joined to the universal lust of adventure, dominated the whole mediaeval period to an extraordinary degree; that motive was the idea of doing penance and—­after all the failures of life—­returning to God.  The Crusades offered an opportunity for combining one’s heart’s desire with this spiritual need.  Of all good works there were none more pleasing to God, and every participator was promised forgiveness of his sins.  In the troubadours’ songs of the crusaders there is a strong yearning for penance and sanctification, quite independent of the idea of the delivery of the Holy Sepulchre from the rule of the infidels.

     All I held dear I now abhor,
     My pride, my knightly rank and fame,
     And seek the spot which all adore,
     The pilgrim’s goal—­Jerusalem.

sang Guillem of Poitiers, one of the gayest of the troubadours.

Only very few of the more thoughtful minds realised that divine thoughts have their source in the soul of man, and that these Crusades were obviously a senseless undertaking (not to mention the fact that God does not need human assistance).  “It is a greater thing to worship God always in humility and poverty,” said the abbot, Peter of Cluny, “than to journey to Jerusalem in great pomp and circumstance.  If, therefore, it is a good thing to visit Jerusalem and stand on the soil which our Lord’s feet have trod, it is a far better thing still to strive after