well to stir up Christendom to drive back the Moslem power, and deliver
Jerusalem and the holy places. Urban II. accordingly, when holding a
council at Clermont, in Auvergne, permitted Peter to describe in glowing
words the miseries of pilgrims and the profanation of the holy places.
Cries broke out, "God wills it!" and multitudes thronged to receive
crosses cut out in cloth, which were fastened to the shoulder, and
pledged the wearer to the holy war or crusade, as it was called. Philip
I. took no interest in the cause, but his brother Hugh, Count of
Vermandois, Stephen, Count of Blois, Robert, Duke of Normandy, and
Raymond, Count of Toulouse, joined the expedition, which was made under
Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, or what we now call the
Netherlands. The crusade proved successful; Jerusalem was gained, and a
kingdom of detached cities and forts was founded in Palestine, of which
Godfrey became the first king. The whole of the West was supposed to
keep up the defence of the Holy Land, but, in fact, most of those who
went as armed pilgrims were either French, Normans, or Aquitanians; and
the men of the East called all alike Franks. Two orders of monks, who
were also knights, became the permanent defenders of the kingdom--the
Knights of St. John, also called Hospitallers, because they also lodged
pilgrims and tended the sick; and the Knights Templars. Both had
establishments in different countries in Europe, where youths were
trained to the rules of their order. The old custom of solemnly girding
a young warrior with his sword was developing into a system by which the
nobly born man was trained through the ranks of page and squire to full
knighthood, and made to take vows which bound him to honourable customs
to equals, though, unhappily, no account was taken of his inferiors.


6. Louis VI. and VII.--Philip's son, _Louis VI., or the Fat_, was the
first able man whom the line of Hugh Capet had produced since it mounted