The age of the crusades . e Scotch [who represented to thecontinental mind the ends of the earth], coveredwith shaggy cloaks, hasten from the heart of theirmarshes. ... I take God to witness that therelanded in our ports barbarians from nations I wist notof; no one understood their tongues, but placing theirfingers in the form of a cross, they made sign thatthey desired to proceed to the defence of the^Chris-tian faith. The flight of these swarms of humanity eastwardhad three consecutive features which should be , it v/as a crusade of the crowd, which began inMarch, 1096; secondly c
The age of the crusades . e Scotch [who represented to thecontinental mind the ends of the earth], coveredwith shaggy cloaks, hasten from the heart of theirmarshes. ... I take God to witness that therelanded in our ports barbarians from nations I wist notof; no one understood their tongues, but placing theirfingers in the form of a cross, they made sign thatthey desired to proceed to the defence of the^Chris-tian faith. The flight of these swarms of humanity eastwardhad three consecutive features which should be , it v/as a crusade of the crowd, which began inMarch, 1096; secondly came the more orderly mili-tary movement, uTider the great feudal chieftains,which began in the subsequent autumn; and thirdly,the enterprise became consolidated on national lines,under the kings, who gradually acquired power andtook command of their various peoples. This lastfeature, however, did not appear until the secondcrusade, nearly half a century later. THE FIRST CRUSADE. CHAPTER X. THE CRUSADE OF THE CROWD. ^WBWWS. HE eloquence of Peter served him in thestead of more orderly methods of enlist-ing the people. Untrained masses of men,women, and children followed him fromplace to place, and about Easter to thenumber of upward of sixty thousand crossed theRhine. Walter, surnamed the Penniless, assumedthe leadership of the advance portion of this impatientthrong. The people, however, cared little for anyauthority save that of the imagined divine presence,which would appear through pillars of cloud andfire to direct them in emergency. The fears of themore cautious were silenced by a saying of Solo-mon, The grasshoppers have no king, yet they goforth in companies. A goose and a goat were led atthe head of the motley procession, under the fanaticaldelusion that in these creatures resided some super-human wisdom. It has been suggested that thissuperstition was due to the importation of Manicheannotions, since the goose was the Egyptian symbol for 78 Walter the Penniless—Peter
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