Part 8 (2/2)

[Sidenote: _Christians Possess the City on Friday_]

Where prodigies are so constantly related and truth sacrificed to marvels, we can not be certain that the statement is true that the Christians entered Jerusalem on a Friday at three, at the same hour at which Christ died for all men. The Crusaders forgot the teaching of the hour; remembered only their wounds, losses, and sufferings, and put to death without mercy all who came in their way and all they could ferret out.

[Sidenote: _Christians Murder Saracens_]

Death by jumping from the walls seemed more desirable to many than appeal to Christian mercy. Their last resort was to the mosques, and particularly the Mosque of Omar. Into this the Christians rode on horseback and trampled the heaps of dead and dying laid low by ”Christian” swords. An eyewitness, Raymond d'Agiles, says that in the porch of this mosque blood rose to the knees and bridles of the horses!

Ten thousand were slain there. The authority cited above declares that bodies floated in the blood, and arms and hands were tossed by sanguine waves. An Arabian author says, ”Seventy thousand were killed in the Mosque of Omar.” G.o.d alone knows the truth. Only once before in human history can be found a record of such slaughter, and that was when t.i.tus conquered the city centuries before.

[Sidenote: _Peter Object of Great Interest_]

The fame of Peter the Hermit was such that the Christians of the city coming from their hiding-places to greet their deliverers had no eyes for anybody but the eloquent monk, nor praises for any other. He was the sole cause of their deliverance as he was the prophet of their cause.

[Sidenote: _G.o.dfrey Goes to Holy Sepulcher_]

The n.o.bility of G.o.dfrey appears in this, that, refraining from revenge, as soon as the battle was over he laid aside his weapons, bared his feet, and went to pray at the Holy Sepulcher. This was the signal for the cessation of bloodshed as soon as known. The b.l.o.o.d.y garments were thrown aside, and, barefooted and bareheaded, the Crusaders marched to the Church of the Resurrection.

In this sudden change from fiends to the penitence and devoutness of Christians, we note a constantly recurring fact. These changes of mood are characteristic of fanaticism, which is always possessed by its ideas, and never rules over them. Elijah stepped down from the exaltation of the G.o.d-accepted prophet on Carmel to be the murderer of the prophets of Baal, and was left to cowardice, to melancholy, and to wandering in the desert until taught by the fire, the wind, and the earthquake that he was not to bring human pa.s.sion into G.o.d's work.

[Sidenote: _Crusaders Again Butcher Saracens_]

The Crusaders seem to have learned no permanent lesson of pity. They soon returned to the sword. Fearing the care of too many prisoners; dreading that, if released, they would have to fight them again, and feeling that they must make ready to meet an Egyptian army whose arrival was daily expected, they decreed the death of all the unbelievers who remained in the city. Pa.s.sion energized policy. They compelled the Saracens to leap from the walls or into flames, and heaped up their corpses as altars on which others were sacrificed. The city was everywhere strewn with corpses, even, as one remarks, ”the very place where Christ forgave His enemies.” The habit of killing was now so inveterate that such sights distressed none except as the odors and dangers of pestilence. A few Mussulmans, saved chiefly from the fortress of David, were compelled to remove for burial the bodies of their kindred and people beyond the walls. The soldiers of Raymond aided them, not from motives of humanity, but because being the last to enter the city, they hoped to secure what they had missed in pillage by robbing the bodies of the dead.

[Sidenote: _Heaps of Corpses_]

The city was soon cleaned, and, as all respected the marks of private owners.h.i.+p upon which the Crusaders had agreed, they were enriched and soon contributed to the life of a most orderly city.

[Sidenote: _Exhibition of True Cross_]

It will be recalled that when Heraclius conquered Chosroes he claimed to have brought back the true cross to Jerusalem. During the Saracenic occupation the Christians had concealed it and now brought it forth for the adoration of the faithful. With triumph they bore it to the Church of the Resurrection.

[Sidenote: _G.o.dfrey Refuses Crown_]

The question of government was settled, after debate, fasting, some ceremony and prayer, by a special Council of Ten. G.o.dfrey of Bouillon was chosen king with acclamation, all but universal, yet he refused to receive a diadem because his Savior had in that city worn a crown of thorns, and would receive no other t.i.tle beyond ”Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.”

The effort to organize the Church admittedly was less successful in putting wise and holy men in high places than the attempt to elect a suitable king. The bishops of the Latin Church, then as now, took high ground, claimed to be above the civil power, and demanded that the bulk of the captured wealth be put into their hands. The Greek priests had the right of possession, but were sacrificed. Simeon, who had invited the Crusaders, and who from Cypress had repeatedly sent the Latins succor, died while a Latin bishop was claiming his patriarchate. Arnold, believed by most to be tainted, was made pastor of Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: _Arrogance of the Latin Bishops_]

[Sidenote: _A New Peril_]

The Saracens, much as they had suffered, were not ready to abandon the field. Such as were left joined the Caliph of Cairo who was advancing to attack Jerusalem. G.o.dfrey, deserted by some of his colleagues, went out to meet him; the deserters following after when the peril became more visible and imminent. Peter led the clergy and prayed for a final success. They numbered not more than twenty thousand, yet they won a great victory, some of their enemies being driven to the mountains, others peris.h.i.+ng in the sea. They dropped their arms in terror, and were literally mowed down. Thus ended the battle of Askalon, and it was the last victory of the first Crusade.

[Sidenote: _Peter and His End_]

Peter returned to Europe, resumed a quiet life in a monastery, which was built at Huy on the right bank of the Meuse, in pursuance of a vow made when in danger at sea by Peter's fellow voyager, the Count de Montaigne.

It was dedicated in 1130. Peter died there at a great age, and was buried at his request outside the church on the ground of humility. One hundred and thirty years later the abbot removed (in 1242) his bones to a shrine before the Altar of the Apostles in the Abbey Church. His life was ended, ”but his works followed him.”

The church where he was buried was wasted and wrecked during the French Revolution and Peter's coffin destroyed. His gravestone still exists.

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