shone, he leaped forward in the flight of a double (or natural)[56]
movement, abandoning his paternal home and family, changing his
behaviour to take on a sacred purpose. The locust had no king,
because each faithful soul had no leader but God alone; certain that
He is his companion in arms, he has no doubt that God goes before him.
He rejoices to have undertaken the journey by the promptings of
God's will, who will be his solace in tribulation. But what is it
that drives a whole community unless it is that simplicity and unity
which compels the hearts of so many people to desire one and the same
thing? Although the call from the apostolic see was directed only to
the French nation, as though it were special, what nation under
Christian law did not send forth throngs to that place? In the
belief that they owed the same allegiance to God as did the French,
they strove strenuously, to the full extent of their powers, to share
the danger with the Franks. There you would have seen the military
formations of Scots, savage in their own country, but elsewhere
unwarlike, their knees bare, with their shaggy cloaks, provisions
hanging from their shoulders, having slipped out of their boggy
borders, offering as aid and testimony to their faith and loyalty,
their arms, numerically ridiculous in comparison with ours. As God
is my witness I swear that I heard that some barbarian people from I
don't know what land were driven to our harbor, and their language
was so incomprehensible that, when it failed them, they made the sign
of the cross with their fingers; by these gestures they showed what
they could not indicate with words, that because of their faith they
set out on the journey. But perhaps I shall treat these matters at
greater length when I have more room. Now we are concerned with the
state of the church of Jerusalem, or the Eastern church, as it was
then.