- rally poor and depended chiefly on their swords
for subsistence, they would engage in any body's quarrels; fight in the cause of women or children who were either injured or oppressed, and enlist in the service of princes and barons who were at war.
29. This was called chivalry, and these knights errant, or wandering knights, were made welcome wherever they went, and treated with hospitality at the castles of the great.
30. Numbers of them went to the Holy Wars, but, as I suppose you do not know what the Holy Wars were, I will tell you about them.
31. Many pious Christians in those days thought it a duty to make a journey, or pilgrimage as it was called, to Jerusalem, once in their lives, to say their prayers at our Saviour's tomb; but Jerusalem had been conquered by the Mahomedans, who hated the Christians, and behaved very cruelly to the pilgrims; so the Pope, who you know is the great Bishop of Rome, and at that time had more authority over all the countries of Europe than the kings had, said that it was the duty of all Christian warriors to go to Palestine, or the Holy Land, to fight against the Saracens, and try to drive them from Jerusalem.
32. Then a religious man, called Peter the
