The Crusades 317 | First Crusade. the Epicureans, prefer the broad way of pleasure to the narrow way of God's service. To them love of the world is wisdom and those who despise it are fools. ... I, however, since I trust in the Lord and strive not for pres- ent but for future things, would, although only as an idle spectator yet a kindly well-wisher, exalt the glorious men of our time who have overcome the kingdoms of this world and who, for the sake of the blessed Shepherd who sought the hundredth sheep that was lost, have left wife and child, principalities and riches, and have taken their lives in their hands. . . . [After Urban had aroused the spirits of all by the promise The many of forgiveness to those who undertook the expedition with single-hearted devotion,] toward one hundred thousand men were appointed to the immediate service of God from Aqui- taine and Normandy, England, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Gascony, France, Flanders, Lorraine, and from other Christian peoples, whose names I no longer retain. It was truly an army of "crusaders," for they bore the sign of the cross on their garments as a reminder that they should mor- tify the flesh, and in the hope that they would in this way triumph over the enemies of the cross of Christ, as it had once come to pass in the case of the great Constantine. Thus, through the marvelous and unexampled working of divine dispensation, all these members of Christ, so differ- ent in speech, origin, and nationality, were suddenly brought together as one body through their love of Christ. While they were all under one king, Christ, the several peoples nevertheless were led by their several leaders, namely Godfrey of Lorraine and his brothers Baldwin and Eustace, Robert of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, Count Regimund of St. Gilles, Hugh, brother of King Philip of France, and other warriors of similar energy, rank, and bravery. Over all of these the above-mentioned pope placed Bishop Hade- mar, a man of venerable holiness and wisdom. To him the pope granted the right to exercise in his stead the power transmitted by St. Peter to the Roman see of binding and loosing. . . .
