The Prussians, during this century, were driven into the fold of the Church. A Christian missionary, Adalbert, bishop of Prague, had been murdered by the "fierce and savage Prussians," and in order to show the civilising results of the gentle Christian creed, Boleslaus, king of Poland, entered "into a bloody war with the Prussians, and he obtained, by the force of penal laws and of a victorious, army, what Adalbert could not effect by exhortation and argument. He dragooned this savage people into the Christian Church" (p. 230). Some of his followers tried a gentler method of conversion, and were murdered by the Prussians, who clearly saw no reason why Christians should do all the killing. We have already seen that Sylvester II. called upon the Christian princes to commence a "holy war" against "the infidels" who held the holy places of Christianity. Gregory VII. strove to stir them up in like fashion, and had gathered together an army of upwards of 50,000 men, whom he proposed to lead in person into Palestine. The Pope, however, quarrelled with Henry IV., emperor of Germany, and his project fell through. At the close of this century, the long-talked of effort was made. Peter the Hermit, who had travelled through Palestine, came into Europe and related in all directions tales of the sufferings of the Christians under the rule of the "barbarous" Saracens. He appealed to Urban II., the then Pope, and Urban, who at first discouraged him, seeing that Peter had succeeded in rousing the most warlike nations of Christian Europe into enthusiasm, called a council at Placentia, A.D. 1095, and appealed to the Christian princes to take up the cause of the Cross. The council was not successful, and Urban summoned another at Clermont, and himself addressed the assembly. "It is the will of God" was the shout that answered him, and the people flew to arms. "Every means was used to excite an epidemical frenzy, the remission of penance, the dispensation from those practices of self-denial which superstition imposed or suspended at pleasure, the absolution of all sins, and the assurance of eternal felicity. None doubted that such as persisted in the war received immediately the reward of martyrdom. False miracles and fanatical prophecies, which were never so frequent, wrought up the enthusiasm to a still higher pitch. [Mosheim states, p. 231, that Peter the Hermit carried about with him a letter from heaven, calling on all true Christians to deliver their brethren from the infidel yoke.] And these devotional feelings, which are usually thwarted and balanced by other passions, fell in with every motive that could influence the men of that time, with curiosity, restlessness, the love of licence, thirst for war, emulation, ambition. Of the princes who assumed the cross, some, probably from the beginning, speculated upon forming independent establishments in the East. In later periods, the temporal benefits of undertaking a crusade undoubtedly blended themselves with less selfish considerations. Men resorted to Palestine, as in modern times they have done to the colonies, in order to redeem their time, or repair their fortune. Thus Gui de Lusignan, after flying from France for murder, was ultimately raised to the throne of Jerusalem. To the more vulgar class were held out inducements which, though absorbed in the more overruling fanaticism of the first crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when it began rather to flag. During the time that a crusader bore the cross, he was free from suit for his debts, and the interest of them was entirely abolished; he was exempted, in some instances, at least, from taxes, and placed under the protection of the Church, so that he could not be impleaded in any civil court, except on criminal charges, or disputes relating to land" ("Europe during the Middle Ages," Hallam, pp. 29, 30). Thus fanaticism and earthly pleasures and benefits all pushed men in the same direction, and Europe flung itself upon Palestine. Men, women, and children, poured eastwards in that first crusade, and this mixed vanguard of the coming army of warriors was led by Peter the Hermit and Gaultier Sans-Avoir. This vanguard was "a motley assemblage of monks, prostitutes, artists, labourers, lazy tradesmen, merchants, boys, girls, slaves, malefactors, and profligate debauchees;" "it was principally composed of the lowest dregs of the multitude, who were animated solely by the prospect of spoil and plunder, and hoped to make their fortunes by this holy campaign" (p. 232).