Part 3 (1/2)

Wherever the Hermit went he was received as a saint, and if the people could not obtain a thread of his garment they contented themselves with a hair from the tail of his mule!

[Sidenote: _Effect of His Preaching_]

Whatever the modern mind may see of credulity among the people or of fanaticism in Peter, contemporary annals show that his preaching was followed by the results promised to the Gospel. Michaud says: ”Differences in families were reconciled, the poor were comforted, the debauched blushed at their errors. His discourses were repeated by those who heard to those who did not. His austerities and his miracles were widely known and credited. When Peter found those who had been in Palestine, or confessed to have been there, he used them as living examples, and made their rags speak of the barbarities they had suffered, or claimed to have suffered, at Turkish hands.”

[Sidenote: _Constantinople in Peril_]

Additional strength was given to the cry for relief from Palestine by the perils of Constantinople. This city, under nominally Christian emperors, had become a museum of sacred relics. Alexius Comnena threatened by the same warriors who had subjected the Holy City, offered his sacred treasures and his secular riches to the leaders who would rescue his capital. The poor esteem in which the haughty but, when in danger, servile Greek held the Franks, as to everything but warlike power, is indicated by his promising the Frank warriors the beauty of the Greek women. As if these warriors were of the same tastes as the Turks! To pa.s.s under the Mussulman yoke was infinitely more degrading than to hand his scepter to the Latins.

[Sidenote: _Urban Concentrates Opinion_]

Urban now found it a suitable time to attempt to concentrate opinion and prepare for action by summoning a Council at Plaisance. There was a great response to the papal summons. Two hundred bishops and archbishops, four thousand ecclesiastics, thirty thousand of the laity came to the Council which had to meet, on account of its size, outside the city wall.

[Sidenote: _Amba.s.sadors of Alexius Humble_]

The tone of the Eastern emperors had long been so haughty that the presence of their amba.s.sadors at a Latin Council was a sufficient proof of their humiliation. The pope seconded their requests and prayers with all the force of speech and authority; yet the Council concluded nothing. It seems probable that the astute pope pa.s.sed the word that no conclusion should be formulated, as he was not yet ready to indicate all that was in his mind. It may well be that the danger to Constantinople was not yet so evident to Alexius and to all as to indicate the hour for absolute submission to the Roman authority.

[Sidenote: _Italy not yet Roused_]

[Sidenote: _Opening of the Council_]

It is more probable, however, that Urban could not yet command Italian aid and unity. Commerce had so developed that religion, where it interfered with it, could not command undivided allegiance. The Italians, too, were near enough to know the limitations of Urban's power, his failures and disgraces, and could not be summoned to action as successfully as those who were farther away from knowledge of the weakness of the papal grip. So the second Council met at Clermont in Auvergne, and was equally weighty in the numbers attending and the authority represented. ”The cities and villages of the neighborhood were so filled that tents and pavilions were erected in the meadows, although the weather was very cold.”[4]

Various matters of Church and social discipline were first considered and determined. The purposed delay in reaching the real object of the Council seemed to whet the appet.i.tes for the consideration of the wrongs of the East. Enthusiasm grew to fanaticism, and a grand and universal impatience of other topics finally brought the greater matter before the body.

[Sidenote: _Artful Delay_]

The opening of the subject was had in the great square before the cathedral. A throne had been prepared there for the pope, who approached it followed by his cardinals and accompanied by Peter the Hermit in the garb now known to the Christian world everywhere.

[Sidenote: _Describes Sufferings of Christians_]

Peter was put forward to speak first. His countenance was cast down with humiliation, and his voice expressed his inward agony as he told what he had seen of the sufferings of Christians at the scene of the world's redemption. He told how they had been chained, beaten, harnessed like brutes; how their bread had been taken away; how they had been compelled to pay from the poverty of the pilgrim's wallet for approach to the sacred shrines; how Christian ministers had, like their Lord, known the rod, and met their death.

It is not needful to suppose that the growth of Peter's emotion, as he told this tale of horrors, was simulated. In the cooler blood of to-day the narrative stirs a sluggish heart. He ceased to speak because choked with sobs.

[Sidenote: _Urban's Great Speech_]

The speech of Urban, who followed Peter, was one of the greatest ever spoken in its effect on the history of the world. Delivered undoubtedly in French, it survives only in ecclesiastical Latin. He was in France.

He wished to stir the French. He could not have moved them through an interpreter as he moved them in his own tongue and theirs. He began in the language of compliment.

[Sidenote: _Urban Compliments Franks_]

[Sidenote: _Describes Desecration of Palestine_]

”Nation beloved of G.o.d, it is in your courage that the Christian world has placed its hope. Because I am well acquainted with your piety and your bravery, I have crossed the Alps to preach to you.... You have not forgotten that but for the exploits of Charles Martel and Charlemagne France would have been under the rule of Mahomet.... Your fathers saved the West from slavery. More n.o.ble triumphs await you. Under the guidance of the G.o.d of Armies you will deliver Europe and Asia, you will rescue the City of Jesus Christ from whence the Lord has come to us. Whose soul does not melt? Whose bowels are not stirred with shame and sorrow? The holy place has become not only a den of thieves, but the dwelling place of devils. Even the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has become a stable for cattle. Men have been ma.s.sacred and women ravished within those blessed walls. European Christians are warring on each other when they ought to be rescuing their brethren from the yoke, and from the unbeliever's sword.”

[Sidenote: _Offers Rewards for Crusading_]

[Sidenote: _Pathetic Closing_]