1. The festival of the Assumption, August 15th 1096, was fixed as the day on which the Crusaders should commence their march. Women urged their husbands, their brothers, and their sons to take the cross; and those who refused became marks for general contempt. Property of all kinds was sold to raise money; but as all wanted to sell and none to buy, it naturally fell to an exceedingly low price, and was bought up chiefly by the clergy; so that nearly the whole property of the country passed into their hands. Godfrey pledged his castle of Bouillon, in the Ardennes, to the bishop of Liege. The artisan sold his tools, the husbandman his implements, to raise the means of equipment. The fabulous splendor and wealth of the East were set before the imagination, already stimulated by the romantic legends of Charlemagne and his peers. Besides the religious enthusiasm which now animated all ranks, a variety of other motives was at work. For the peasant there was now opportunity to quit his depressed life, to bear arms, and forsake the service of his feudal lord. For the robber, the pirate, the outlaw, there was pardon and restoration to society; for the debtor there was escape from his obligations; and for all who took up the cross there was the assurance that death in the holy war would make them partakers in the glory and bliss of the martyrs. And so great was the excitement produced by this papal epidemic, that long before the time appointed for the commencement of the expedition, the impatience of the multitude was unable to restrain itself.
Early in the spring of 1096, Peter, the first missionary of the crusade, set out on his march for the East at the head of a wild and motley host. About sixty thousand of the populace from the confines of France and Lorraine flocked around the hermit, and pressed him to lead them to the holy sepulcher. He now assumed the character, without the abilities, of a general, and marched along the Rhine and Danube. Walter the Penniless, a poor but valiant soldier, followed with about fifteen thousand. A monk named Gottschalk pursued closely after Peter and Walter with about twenty thousand from the villages of Germany. A fourth swarm of about two hundred thousand of the refuse of the people, conducted by a Count Emecho, pressed upon their rear. These successive crowds now numbered fully three hundred thousand warriors of the cross, so-called. But it was soon manifest that another spirit animated them. Not one of them knew the cross, save as an outward idolatrous emblem. Old and infirm, women and children, and the lowest dregs of the idle populace, followed the camp of the Crusaders!
Nothing could be more melancholy and disastrous than the conduct and fate of these deluded swarms. Their wants, and numbers soon compelled them to separate. They were without order or discipline, and most of them unprovided with either armor or money. They had no idea of the distance of Jerusalem, or of the difficulties to be encountered by the way. So ignorant were they, that, at the sight of the first city beyond the limits of their knowledge, they were ready to inquire if this was Jerusalem. In place of sobriety and order in their march, it was marked by murder, plunder, dissoluteness, and infamous habits of every kind. The unoffending Jewish inhabitants of the towns on the Moselle, the Rhine, the Maine, and the Danube, through which they marched, were plundered and slaughtered as the murderers of Christ and the enemies of the cross. The population of Hungary and Bulgaria rose up against them because of their disorderly and plundering habits, and immense numbers of them were slain.
After repeated disasters and foolish adventures they reached Constantinople; but Alexius, the Greek Emperor, more alarmed than gratified with his allies, had them speedily, if not treacherously, conveyed across the Bosphorus. A great battle was fought soon after, under the walls of Nicaea—the Turkish capital. The army of the Hermit was cut to pieces by Solyman, the Turkish Sultan of Iconium. Walter the Penniless was slain, with most of his followers; their bones were gathered into a vast heap to warn their companions of the hopelessness of their enterprise. It is reckoned that in these ill-conducted expeditions three hundred thousand had already perished; some extend the number to half a million. Of those who had started under the guidance of Peter and his lieutenants, not more than 20,000 survived; and these endeavored to find their way back to their home, but only to tell the sad fate of their companions who had died by the arrows of the Turks and Hungarians, or by want and fatigue. Hardly one of Peter's army ever reached the borders of the Holy Land. Pope Urban lived to hear of the distresses and miseries of his own evil work, but died before the capture of Jerusalem.