their sacred engagement to go forth to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. The fifteenth day of August of the following year was set for the departure of the expedition.
2. The First Crusade (1096–1099).
Mustering of the Crusaders.—All Western Europe now rang with the cry, " He who will not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me." The contagion of enthusiasm seized all classes; for while the religious feelings of the age had been specially appealed to, all the various sentiments of ambition, chivalry, love of license, had also been skilfully enlisted on the side of the undertaking. The council of Clermont had declared Europe to be in a state of peace, and pronounced anathemas against any one who should invade the possessions of a prince engaged in the holy war. By further edicts of the assembly, the debtor was released from meeting his obligations while a soldier of the Cross, and during this period the interest on his debt was to cease; and the criminal, as soon as he assumed the badge of the crusader, was by that act instantly absolved from all his sins of whatever nature. Under such inducements princes and nobles, bishops and priests, monks and anchorites, saints and sinners, rich and poor, hastened to enroll themselves beneath the consecrated banner.
"Europe," says Michaud, "appeared to be a land of exile, which every one was eager to quit."
The Vanguard.—Before the regular armies of the crusaders were ready to move, those who had gathered about Peter the Hermit, becoming impatient of delay, urged him to place himself at their head and lead them at once to the Holy Land. Dividing command of the mixed multitudes with a poor knight, called Walter the Penniless, and followed by a throng of about 80,000 persons, among whom were many women and children, the Hermit set out for Constantinople by the overland route through Germany and Hungary. Thousands of the crusaders fell in battle with the natives of the countries through which they marched, and thou-
