Chapter 13

“My history! I am from Amiens in France. I am now called Peter; was formerly a soldier, followed William the Conqueror to Hastings, and took part in the invasion of England. I returned to my own country, and became a school teacher. I could, however, obtain no peace in my soul, but entered a convent. In the solitude of my cell, I reflected on what I heard from my brother monks in the chapter. It was the time when Henry IV began the conflict with Gregory VII. The Pope was right, for Europe ought to be governed from Rome, and Gregory, who wished to set up Christ’s Kingdom in spirit and in truth, had united all Christian States together; he imposed tribute from Scandinavia to the Pillars of Hercules. The Emperor was a schismatic, and worked only in the interests of Germany. The matter ended at Canossa, as you know, when the Emperor had to kiss the Pope’s foot. And that was right at that time, for the spiritual head is higher than the worldly one. But Canossa was not the end. Gregory, the mighty champion of the Lord, fell into the same sin as David. In the first place, he summoned the Norman Guiscard from Sicily to his aid. Guiscard came with a horde of Turks and heathen, pillaged Rome, and set it on fire. That was shameful of the Pope, who now fled with Guiscard to Salerno--which was _his_ Canossa. But he was also still cruel enough to stir up Henry’s sons against their father. Then the great Gregory died in banishment, and Rome was extinct. Rome is no more, but Jerusalem shall be. The chief city of Christendom shall be born again, and rise from its ruins.”

The Patriarch had listened, and, though he smiled at first, he was finally serious. “Your faith is great, my son,” he said. “But who will take the lead? Who will collect the people?”

“I,” answered the Hermit--“I will open the Holy Sepulchre; I will drive out the heathen, and I will have the first Christian King of Jerusalem crowned!”

“With two empty hands?”

“With my rock-like faith.”

There was silence.

“Say something, Patriarch!” resumed Peter. “Try to damp my courage if you can; confront me with objections, and rob me of confidence. You cannot! There, I will go now to Rome and speak with Urban II. But give me a letter to confirm my statements when I describe the behaviour of the heathen in the city of Christ. I ask nothing else of you; the rest I will do myself.”

“Whoever you are, you shall have the letter, but rest first for a few days.”

“No! I have gone three hundred and fifty miles and rested for thirty days. Give me something to eat in the kitchen, while you write the letter, and I start before sunset. When I come again, I shall not be alone, but my name will be Legion. And you will see the accomplishment of my words and your dreams, for God wills it.”

* * * * *

The Hermit Peter walked a hundred and fifty miles to Piacenza, and there met Pope Urban II, who was holding a council. He received no encouragement, for the idea of a crusade was no novelty. Gregory VII had collected fifty thousand men for that purpose, but could not carry out his plan. With a true Christian spirit, the Hermit took this failure as a warning to redouble his efforts.

He went to France, preached and stirred up the people, with the result that all France was aflame with crusading fervour when Urban II came to Clermont to hold another council. Then the Crusade was determined on. Peter could not wait, but, together with Walter Pexejo and Walter von Habenichts, he collected a host which finally reached forty thousand in number, including old men, women, and children. There were no soldiers however, but only adventurers who wanted to run away, slaves who sought freedom, and malcontents who wished for change.

They followed the Rhine towards its source, and then the Danube, along whose banks the great road to the East ran. As they approached the frontier of Hungary their number had increased to sixty thousand. The King of Hungary, Kolowan, was not exactly hospitable, and not a person whom it was safe to jest with. The Crusaders received a hint that they were not very welcome, and therefore sent their only mounted men,--exactly six in number--as ambassadors to the King.

Kolowan was in Pesth, with a well-equipped army, and his country was enjoying the blessings of peace, when the envoys arrived. “What do you want?” he asked.

“We seek a free passage to Constantinople.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Exactly sixty thousand.”

“Although I feel honoured by the visit, I cannot entertain grasshoppers. I have heard of your wild enterprise; I know that you have no provisions with you, and that you beg and steal. Return therefore to your country, or I will treat you as enemies!”

The envoys rode back with the King’s answer. But Peter would not turn back.

“Forward! forward! Crusaders and Christians!” he cried, and the whole host crossed the frontier. The Hermit rode on an ass at the head of them, and knew not what went on behind him--robbery, drunkenness, and licence.

The King learned what had happened, and rode out with all his knights. When he saw this mass of ragged rascals, drunk and savage, but all wearing the red cross, he fell in a rage and attacked them. Those who did not fly were trampled underfoot and sabred down so mercilessly, that, out of the sixty thousand, only three thousand reached Constantinople, among whom was the Hermit.

“We have sown our blood,” he said; “our successors will reap.”

The Emperor of Constantinople had certainly for a long time waited for help from the West against the wild Seljuks, but he had expected armed men. When he now received a rabble of three thousand beggars and vagabonds, many of them wounded, he resolved to get rid of these guests as honourably as possible. He set them in flat-bottomed boats, and shipped them across to Asia Minor. “Thence you have a straight road to Jerusalem,” he said. But he did not say that the Seljuks were encamped on the opposite coast. Accordingly, the rest of them were massacred by the wild hordes near Nicasa--in the same town in which, during the early days of Christianity, so many fateful debates had taken place.

But the Hermit escaped, and returned to Constantinople, where he waited for the great army of the Crusaders. He waited a whole year, just as confident of victory and undismayed as before.

* * * * *

In the little town Tiberias, on the shore of the Lake of Gennesareth sat the old Jew Eleazar, with his family, prepared to celebrate the Passover, or the Exodus from Egypt. It was the tenth day of the month Nisan of the year 1098. The lake shone clear, and its banks were green; the oleanders were in blossom, the lilies had sprung up in the pleasant season when the earth rejoices.

It was evening; all members of the family were dressed as though for a journey, with shoes on their feet and staves in their hands. They stood round the covered table on which the roasted lamb smoked in a dish surrounded by bitter lettuce. The ancestral wine-cup was filled with wine, and white unleavened bread laid on a plate close by.

After the head of the family had washed his hands, he blessed the gifts of God, drank some wine, returned thanks, and invited the others to drink. Then he took some of the bitter herbs, and ate and gave to the others. Then he read from the book of Moses a passage concerning the significance of the feast. After that, the second cup of wine was served, and the youngest son of the house stepped forward and asked, according to the sacred custom, “What is the meaning of this feast?”

The father answered: “The Lord brought us with a strong hand out of the Egyptian bondage.”

As he drank from the second cup, he said, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” They then all sang the 115th Psalm, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the praise, for Thy truth and mercy’s sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?”

Thereupon a blessing was pronounced on the unleavened bread and the roasted lamb, and they sat down to eat, in a state of contentment and with harmless talk. The old Eleazar spoke of past times, and contrasted them with them the present: “Man born of a woman lives but a short time, and is full of trouble; he cometh up like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth hence like a shadow, and continueth not. A stranger and a sojourner is he upon earth, and therefore he should be always ready for his journey as we are, this holy evening.”

The eldest son Jacob, who had come home in the evening after a journey, seemed to wish to say something, but did not venture to do so, till the fourth and last cup was drunk.

“But, my children,” continued Eleazar, “not only is Israel unsettled and roaming on the earth, but all nations are in a state of wandering. The difference between them and us is that their gods are mortal, while Israel’s God lives. Where is Zeus, the god of the Greeks? Where is the Romans’ Jupiter? Where are the Egyptians’ Isis, Osiris, and Ptha? Where is the Woutan of the Germans, the Teutates of the Gauls? They are all dead, but Israel’s God lives; He cannot die. We are at any rate in Canaan, in our fathers’ land, even if Zion is no longer ours, and we cannot forget the goodness which the Lord has shown us.”

The last cup was drunk, and after another psalm the festival was at an end.

“Now, Jacob,” said Eleazar, “you want to talk. You come from a journey, though somewhat late, and have something new to tell us. Hush! I hear steps in the garden!”

All hurried to the window, for they lived in troublous times; but, as no one was to be seen outside, they sat down again at the table.

“Speak, Jacob,” Eleazar said again.

“I come from Antioch, where the Crusaders are besieged by Kerboga, the Emir of Mosul. Famine has raged among them, and of three hundred thousand Goyim, [Footnote: Gentiles.] only twenty thousand remain.”

“What had they to do here?”

“Now, on the roads, they are talking of a new battle which the Goyim have won, and they believe that the Crusaders will march straight on Jerusalem.”

“Well, they won’t come here.”

“They won’t find the way, unless there are traitors.”

“Moslems or Christians, they are all alike, but Moslems could be our friends, because they are of Abraham’s seed. ‘God is One!’ Had their Prophet stood by that, there would have been nothing between us, but he fell through pride and coupling his own name with that of the Highest--‘Muhammed is His Prophet.’ Perhaps, but he should not be named in the same breath with the Eternal. The Christians call him a ‘false prophet,’ but that he was not.”

“The Christians could rather....”

“The Christians are misguided, and their doctrine is folly. They believe the Messiah has come, although the world is like a hell, and men resemble devils! And it ever gets worse....”

Then the door was flung open, and on the threshold appeared a little man, emaciated as a skeleton, with burning eyes. He was clothed in rags, carried a cross in his hand, and bore a red cross-shaped sign on his shoulder.

“Are you Christians?” he asked, “since you drink of the cup and eat the bread, as our Lord Jesus Christ did on the night of his betrayal?”

“No,” answered Eleazar, “we are of Israel.”

“Then you have eaten and drunk your own damnation, and misused the Holy Sacrament for purposes of witchcraft! Out with you!--down to the lake and be baptized, or you will die the death!”

Then Eleazar turned to the Hermit, and cried “No! I and my house will serve the Lord, as we have done this holy evening according to the law of our fathers. We suffer for our sins, that is true, but you, godless, cursed man, pride not yourself on your power, for you have not yet escaped the judgment of Almighty God. I will give my life and shed my blood for the law of my fathers, but God’s justice will punish you, as your pride has deserved.”

The Hermit had gone out to his followers. Those within the house closed the window-shutters and the door.

There was a cry without: “Fire the house!”

“Let us bless God, and die!” said Eleazar, and none of them hesitated.

All fell on their knees. Eleazar spoke: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And when I am free from my flesh, I shall see God. Him shall I see and not another, and for that my soul and my heart cry out.”

The mother had taken the youngest son in her arms, as though she wished to protect him against the fire which now seized on the wall.

Then Eleazar began the Song of the Three Children in the fire, and when they came to the words,

“O Thank the Lord, for He is good, And His mercy endureth for ever.”

their voices were choked, and they ended their days like the Maccabees.

On 16th July 1069, Peter the Hermit entered Jerusalem through the same Jaffa Gate before which he had sat as a beggar. When Godfrey of Bouillon became King of Jerusalem, Peter was appointed Governor. After he had seen his dream fulfilled, he returned to his own country, entered the convent Neufmoustier, near Lüttich, and remained there till his death.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem soon came to an end. The Muhammedans re-occupied it, and remain there to this day.

The remarkable thing about these predatory expeditions--the Crusades--was that they were led by the Normans, and were curiously like the raids of the Vikings. The indirect results of the Crusades are still treated of in students’ essays, which generally close with the moral, “there is nothing evil which does not bring some good with it.” Voltaire and Hume, on the other hand, regard the Crusades as the enterprises of lunatics. It is a difficult matter to decide!

LAOCOON

On the Esquiline Hill in Rome, on a spring day in 1506, Signor de Fredis was walking in his vineyard. The day before, his workmen had been digging a pit to seek water, but found none. Signer de Fredis stood by it, and asked himself whether it was not a pity that so much earth had been thrown out, and whether it could not be utilised in the vineyard. He felt about with his stick in the upper part of the pit to ascertain how deep the soil was. The stick sank in the earth up to its handle without meeting with any resistance.

“There must be a hollow under the ground,” he said to himself. He first thought of calling the workmen, but since it was better to make the discovery himself, he took a mattock and spade and set to work. By noon he had made a hole large enough to get through, but since it was pitch-black inside, he first went to fetch a lantern. Carrying this, he went down into the earth, and came into a vaulted room. He went through five rooms and found no treasures, but in the sixth he saw a sight that startled him.

Two enormous snakes had enfolded in the coils a bearded man of heroic stature and his two boys.

One snake had already bitten the man in the right side, and the other had bitten one of the boys in the left. The apparition was a statue of Pentelic marble, and might therefore possess as much value as a treasure. Signor de Fredis went at once to the Prefect of the City, who followed him in company with the Aedile and some learned antiquaries. The work of art was brought to the light, and inspected. Its subject was seen to be the Trojan priest Laocoon, against whom Apollo had sent two snakes because he had warned his countrymen against receiving the dangerous Greek gift of the Trojan horse, in which warriors lay concealed.

It was not an edifying story, nor a comforting one, since it illustrated the sad lot of a prophet in this world. The Romans, however, did not think of that, but greeted the statue as a sign of the Renaissance, a memorial of the classical period, and an omen of better times to come.

Pope Julius II bought the Laocoon for the Vatican, after Michael Angelo had declared it was the greatest work of art in the world, and Signor de Fredis received a pension for life. The excavation and cleaning of the statue took a considerable time. But when at last it was ready, it was decorated with flowers, and carried in procession though the streets of Rome, while all the church-bells rang for a whole hour.

As the procession passed up the Via Flaminia, an Augustinian monk came down it from the northern gate of the city. In front of Hadrian’s triumphal arch, he met the crowd carrying their beloved Laocoon. The monk did not immediately understand the matter. He thought, it is true, that the statue was that of a martyr, but could not think of any martyr who had died in a pit of snakes. He therefore turned to a citizen, and asked in Latin, “Which of the holy Church martyrs is it?”

The citizen laughed as at a good jest, but did not think it necessary to answer.

Now came the crowd singing about the Trojan horse, and jesting about priests. The fact that it was a priest on whom the snakes had fastened seemed to afford especial delight to the sceptical and priest-hating rabble.

The Augustinian monk thought of his Virgil, when he heard the word Troy, and, as the statue came nearer, he could read the name Laocoon, the celebrated priest of Apollo. “Are the church-bells ringing for _that_?” he asked his neighbour again.

The latter nodded.

“Are the people mad?” he asked, and this time he received an answer: “No, they are wise; but you are somewhat stupid; probably you come from Germany.”

At the dawn of this day, the monk had seen the Holy City at sunrise, and had fallen on his knees in the high road to thank God for the great favour vouchsafed to him of at last treading the soil which had been hallowed by the footprints of Apostles and martyrs. But now he felt depressed, for he understood nothing of this heathenish business, and, wandering through the streets of the city, he tried to find the Scala Santa in the southern quarter, where all pilgrims first paid their devotions when they came to Rome.

Here, in the square by the Lateran, Constantine’s wife, Helena, had caused the staircase of Pilate’s Palace to be erected, and it was customary to ascend it kneeling, and not in an erect attitude.

The monk approached the holy spot with all the reverence with which his pious spirit inspired him. He hoped to feel the same ecstasy which he had felt before other sanctuaries and relics, for the Redeemer Himself had trodden these marble steps heavily as he went to His doom.

The monk’s astonishment was therefore great when he saw street-urchins playing on them with buttons and little stones, and he could hardly contain himself when young priests came running and sprang up the eight and twenty steps in a few bounds.

He paid his devotions in the usual way, but without feeling the ecstasy which he had hoped for.

Then he went into the Church of the Lateran and heard a mass. He had imagined that he would find a cathedral in the genuine Gothic style, something like that of Cologne, but he found a Basilica or Roman hall, where in heathen times a market had been held, and it looked very worldly.

At the High Altar there stood two priests before the Epistle and the Gospel. However, they neither read nor sang; they only gossiped with each other, and pretended to turn the leaves; sometimes they laughed, and when it was over they went their way, without giving a blessing or making the sign of the cross.

“Is this the Holy City?” he asked himself, and went out into the streets again.

His business in Rome was to interview the Vicar-General of the Augustinians, about a matter which concerned his convent, but he first wished to look about him. As he went along he came to a little church on the outer wall. In the open space in front of it a pagan festival was being held: Bacchus was represented sitting on a barrel, scantily clothed nymphs rode on horses, and behind them were satyrs, fauns, Apollo, Mercury, Venus.

The monk hastened into the church to escape the sight of the abomination. But in the sacred place he came upon another scandal. Before the altar stood an ass with an open book before it; below the ass stood a priest and read mass. Instead of answering “Amen,” the congregation hee-hawed like asses, and everyone laughed.

That was the classical “Asses’ Festival,” which had been forbidden in the previous century, but which, during the Carnival, had been again resumed. The monk did not understand where he was, but thought he was in the hell of the heathen; but it was still worse when a priest disguised as Bacchus, his face smeared with dregs of wine, entered the pulpit, and, taking a text from Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, preached an indecent discourse, presently, with a skilful turn, going on to narrate a legend about St. Peter. It began in a poetical way, like other legends, but then made Peter come to an alehouse and cheat the innkeeper about the reckoning.

The monk rushed out of the church, and through the streets till he reached the Convent of the Augustines which he sought. He rang, was admitted, and led into the refectory, where the Prior sat at a covered table surrounded by priests who were entertained in the convent in order to make their confessions, and to take the communion during the fast. Before them were pheasants, with truffles and hard-boiled eggs, salmon and oysters, eels and heads of wild boar--above all, quantities of wine in pitchers and glasses.

“Sit down, little monk!” was the Prior’s greeting. “You have a letter: good! Put it under the table-cloth. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”

The monk sat down, but it was Friday, and he could not bring himself to eat flesh on that day. It pained him also to see the licence which prevailed here; still they were his superiors, and the rule of his order forbade him to reprove them.

The Prior, who had just been speaking with some special guest, continued to talk volubly, although conversation was forbidden.

“Yes, worthy friend, we have come as far as this now in Rome. This is Christ’s Kingdom as it was announced at the first Christmas, ‘One Shepherd, One Sheepfold.’ The Holy Father rules over the whole Roman Empire as it was under Caesar and Augustus. But mark well! this empire is a spiritual one, and all these earthly princes lie at the feet of Christ’s representative. This is the crown of all epochs of the world’s history. ‘One Shepherd, One Sheepfold!’ Bibamus!”

On the little platform, where formerly a reader used to read out of holy books while the meal was going on, some musicians now sat with flutes and lutes. They struck up an air, and the cups were emptied.

“Now,” continued the Prior to the monk, “you have come from far; what news have you brought?”

“Anything new under the sun? Yes,” answered a slightly inebriated prelate, “Christopher Columbus is dead, and buried in Valladolid. He died poor, as was to be expected.”

“Pride comes before a fall. He was not content with his honours, but wished to be Viceroy and to levy taxes.”

“Yes, but at any rate he got to India, to East India, after he had sailed westward. It is enough to make one crazy when one tries to understand it. Sailing west in order to go east!”

“Yes, it is all mad, but the worst is that he has brought the cursed sickness, lues”--(here he whispered). “It has already attacked Cardinal John de Medici. You know he is said to be the Pope’s successor.”

“As regards the Holy Father, our great Julius II, he is a valiant champion of the Lord, and now the world has seen what this basilisk-egg, France, has hatched. Fancy! they want to come now and divide our Italy among them! As if we did not have enough with the Germans.”

“The French in Naples! What the deuce have we to do with them?”

The Prior now felt obliged to attend to his guest, the monk.

“Eat, little monk,” he said. “He who is weak, eateth herbs, and all flesh is grass, _ergo_....”

“I never eat meat on Friday, the day on which our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died!”