surrounded by so many people, given so many gifts, and acclaimed for
such great piety, that I don't ever remember anyone equally honored.
He was very generous to the poor with the gifts he was given, making
prostitutes morally acceptable for husbands, together with generous
gifts, and, with remarkable authority, restoring peace and treaties
where there had been discord before. Whatever he did or said seemed
like something almost divine. Even the hairs of his mule were torn
out as though they were relics, which we report not as truth, but as
a novelty loved by the common people. Outdoors he wore a woolen
tunic, which reached to his ankles, and above it a hood; he wore a
cloak to cover his upper body, and a bit of his arms, but his feet
were bare. He drank wine and ate fish, but scarcely ever ate bread.
This man, partly because of his reputation, partly because of his
preaching, had assembled a very large army, and decided to set out
through the land of the Hungarians. The restless common people
discovered that this area produced unusually abundant food, and they
went wild with excess in response to the gentleness of the
inhabitants. When they saw the grain that had been piled up for
several years, as is the custom in that land, like towers in the
fields, which we are accustomed to call "metas"[98] in every-day
language, and although supplies of various meats and other foods were
abundant in this land, not content with the natives' decency, in a
kind of remarkable madness, these intruders began to crush them.
While the Hungarians, as Christians to Christians, had generously
offered everything for sale, our men willfully and wantonly ignored
their hospitality and generosity, arbitrarily waging war against them,
assuming that they would not resist, but would remain entirely
peaceful. In an accursed rage they burned the public granaries we
spoke of, raped virgins, dishonored many marriage beds by carrying
off many women, and tore out or burned the beards of their hosts.