THE CRUSADES, AND THE EAST 175 for the redemption from the infidel of all that Christians held most sacred were added promises that all who took up the War for the Cross should receive their reward in pardon m ^ ._ «, Council of for their misdeeds in the life to come. The Clermont: eloquence of the pope was answered by the shout First Crusade, of the assembled multitude, ' It is the will of God ; it is the will of God'; and princes, prelates and nobles, and multitudes of the meaner folk, pledged themselves to the sacred cause. There is no need to suggest that the pope was not himself actuated by the purest zeal for a cause which all men held to be entirely righteous; but the political gain to the papacy itself was enormous, because the pope declared himself emphatically as the head of Christendom, the inspirer of the great enterprise. But the crusading movement was not that of the united nations of Europe. Emperor and kings did not convene national armies to advance in their allied might against the eastern Character of powers ; it was a movement of individuals. Great the Move- nobles and captains took the Cross, and individuals ment - took the Cross to serve under them. It was a purely volunteer movement ; and if thousands of the volunteers were actuated by the religious motive, thousands of them were also adventurers who hoped to win new possessions for themselves in the east. An army bent on conquest requires organisation, and of this the nobles and princes were well enough aware. But popular and ignorant enthusiasm would not wait for organi- 1096. The sation. A vast rabble gathered and clamoured to First Army, be led to the Holy Land, and set out on their march through Europe under the leadership of Peter the Hermit himself and a captain known as Walter the Penniless. Utterly without order or discipline they aroused hostility wherever they went, and committing countless outrages themselves they were for the most part cut to pieces before they reached Constantinople. The real army started later, counting in its ranks the comparatively disciplined forces of great nobles like Raimond, Count of Toulouse; Robert, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of the Conqueror and brother of William Rufus, King of England ; the
