The age of the crusades . ared to appreciate the incentiveto the crusades which men of all classes found in thespeech of Pope Urban at Clermont, in inauguratingthe movement: Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalemfor the remission of sins, and depart assured of theimperishable glory which awaits you in the kingdomof heaven. Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty ofTurks, once had a dream in which he saw all theleaves of the world-shading tree shaped like cimetersand turning their points towards Constantinople. Thishe interpreted into a prophecy and command for thecapture of that city. Similar
The age of the crusades . ared to appreciate the incentiveto the crusades which men of all classes found in thespeech of Pope Urban at Clermont, in inauguratingthe movement: Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalemfor the remission of sins, and depart assured of theimperishable glory which awaits you in the kingdomof heaven. Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty ofTurks, once had a dream in which he saw all theleaves of the world-shading tree shaped like cimetersand turning their points towards Constantinople. Thishe interpreted into a prophecy and command for thecapture of that city. Similarly we may conceive thevarious conditions and sentiments of Europe in theeleventh century, which have been described in ourprevious chapters, as directing the way to events, however, prove that, unlike Oth-mans leaves, the Christian incentives to the crusadeswere not directed by the breath of Heaven. THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES. CHAPTER IX. THE SUMMONS—PETER THE HERMIT—POPEURBAN—POPULAR T has been customary to attribute theactual initiation of the crusades to thefiery eloquence of Peter the man was a native of Picardy, andwas possessed of a spirit as restless as theseas that washed the shores of that northern provinceof France. He at one time seems to have followedthe life of a soldier, but his ardent mind demandedhigher entertainment than the gossip of camps andexploits of the field. The pursuit of letters, in an ageso barren of literary resources, soon wearied duties seemed also a dreary many of the nobler spirits of his day, he desertedthe world and in the seclusion of his own thoughtssought communion with Heaven. His mind, unfur-nished with information of the actual world, filled itself 7i 72 Summons to Crusade. with visions. From ecstatic solitude he emerged attimes to sway the masses with the eloquence of asecond John the Baptist. According to tradition, hemade the pilgrimage to Palestine, th
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