But some little time before the eleventh century, a second flood began to rush from the East. A tribe of Tartars, called Turcomans, or Turks, embraced Mahometanism, and its precepts of aggression, joining with the warrior-spirit of the Tartar, impelled them forward.
They subdued and slaughtered the Saracens of Syria, made wide conquests in Asia Minor, winning towns of the Greek Empire beyond where the Saracens had ever penetrated, and began to threaten the borders of Christendom. They were very different masters from the Arabs. Active in body, but sluggish in mind, ignorant and cruel, they destroyed and overthrew what the Saracens had spared, disregarded law, and capriciously ill-treated and slaughtered their Christian subjects and the pilgrims who fell into their hands. It was against these savage Turks that the first Crusade was directed.
Peter the Hermit soon gathered together a confused multitude of peasants, women, and children, with whom he set out, together with a German knight named Walter, and called by his countrymen by the expressive name _Habe Nichts_, translated into French, _Sans avoir_, and less happily rendered in English, _The Penniless_. They were a poor, ignorant, half-armed set, who so little knew what they were undertaking, that at every town they came to they would ask if that was Jerusalem. Peter must either have been beyond measure thoughtless, or have expected a miracle to help him, for he set out to lead these poor creatures the whole length of Europe without provisions. They marauded on the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed; the inhabitants revenged themselves and killed them, and the whole wretched host were cut off, chiefly in Hungary and Bulgaria, and Peter himself seems to have been the only man who escaped.
A better-appointed army, consisting of the very flower of chivalry of Europe, had in the meantime assembled to follow the same path, though in a different manner.
First in name and honor was Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, one of the most noble characters whom history records. He was pure in life, devotedly pious, merciful, gentle, and a perfect observer of his word, at the same time that his talents and wisdom were very considerable; he was a finished warrior, expert in every exercise of chivalry, of gigantic strength, and highly renowned as a leader. He had been loyal to the Emperor Henry IV. through the war which had taken place in consequence of his excommunication by Gregory VII. He had killed in battle the rebellious competitor for the imperial crown, who, when dying from a wound by which he had lost his right hand, exclaimed, “With this hand I swore fealty to Henry; cursed be they who led me to break my oath.” Godfrey had likewise been the first to scale the walls of Rome, when Henry IV. besieged Gregory there; but he, in common with many others of the besieging force, soon after suffered severely from malaria fever--the surest way in which modern Rome chastises her invaders; and thinking his illness a judgment for having taken part against the Pope, he vowed to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Soon after, the Crusade was preached, and Godfrey was glad to fulfil his vow with his good sword in his hand, while Pope and princes wisely agreed that such a chieftain was the best they could choose for their expedition.
