take fro them suche as they had, in suche qyse that the chyldren of them
that had ben riche men, men myght see them goo fro dore to dore, for to
begge and gete theyr brede, and some deye for hungre and mesease."
[Footnote: Godeffroy of Bologne, by William, Archbishop of Tyre,
translated from the French by William Caxton, London, 1893, 21, 22.]

Throughout the eleventh century the excitement touching the virtues of the
holy places in Judea grew, until Gregory VII, about the time of Canossa,
perceived that a paroxysm was at hand, and considered leading it, but on
the whole nothing is so suggestive of the latent scepticism of the age as
the irresolution of the popes at this supreme moment. The laity were the
pilgrims and the agitators. The kings sought the relics and took the
cross; the clergy hung back. Robert, Duke of Normandy, for example, the
father of William the Conqueror, died in 1035 from hardship at Nicaea when
returning from Palestine, absorbed to the last in the relics which he had
collected, but the popes stayed at home. Whatever they may have said in
private, neither Hildebrand nor Victor nor Urban moved officially until
they were swept forward by the torrent. They shunned responsibility for a
war which they would have passionately promoted had they been sure of
victory. The man who finally kindled the conflagration was a half-mad
fanatic, a stranger to the hierarchy. No one knew the family of Peter the
Hermit, or whence he came, but he certainly was not an ecclesiastic in
good standing. Inflamed by fasting and penance, Peter followed the throng
of pilgrims to Jerusalem, and there, wrought upon by what he saw, he
sought the patriarch. Peter asked the patriarch if nothing could be done
to protect the pilgrims, and to retrieve the Holy Places. The patriarch
replied, "Nothing, unless God will touch the heart of the western princes,
and will send them to succor the Holy City." The patriarch did not propose
meddling himself, nor did it occur to him that the pope should intervene.
He took a rationalistic view of the Moslem military power. Peter, on the