Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

The Greeks, who entertained no love for the Latins, were more prodigal and kind in the assistance they afforded them from finding them less formidable. They secretly applauded the courage of the Bulgarians, and contemplated with complacency the warriors of the West covered with the rags of indigence. The emperor was desirous of seeing the extraordinary man who had roused the western world by his eloquence, and Peter was admitted to an audience of Alexis. In the presence of all his court, the emperor extolled the zeal of the preacher of the crusade; and as he had nothing to fear from the ambition of a hermit, he loaded him with presents, caused arms, money, and provisions to be distributed among his army, and advised him to defer the commencement of the war to the arrival of the princes and illustrious captains who had assumed the cross.

This advice was salutary, but the most renowned heroes of the crusade were not yet ready to leave Europe; they were to be preceded by fresh troops of Crusaders, who, marching without forethought and without discipline in the steps of the army of Peter, should commit the same excesses, and be exposed to the same reverses. A priest of the Palatinate had preached the crusade in several provinces of Germany. At his voice fifteen or twenty thousand men had taken the oath to fight the infidels, and had assembled in an armed body. As the preachers of the holy war passed for men inspired by God, the people believed they were obeying the will of heaven in taking them for chiefs of the crusade. Gotschalk obtained the same honour that had been conferred on Peter the Hermit, and was elected general by the men he had prevailed upon to take arms. This army arrived in Hungary towards the end of summer. The harvest, which was abundant, furnished the Germans with a ready opportunity of giving themselves up to intemperance. In the enjoyment of tumultuous scenes of debauchery, they forgot Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Christ himself, whose worship and laws they were marching to defend. Pillage, violation, and murder were everywhere left as the traces of their passage. Coloman assembled troops to chastise their license, and to recall them to a sense of the maxims of justice and the laws of hospitality. The soldiers of Gotschalk were full of courage, and, at first, defended themselves with advantage. Their resistance even inspired serious alarm among the Hungarians, who resolved to employ stratagem to reduce them. The general of Coloman feigned to be desirous of peace. The chiefs of the Hungarians presented themselves in the camp of the Crusaders, no longer as enemies, but as brothers. By dint of protestations and caresses, they persuaded them to allow themselves to be disarmed. The Germans, slaves of the most brutal passions, but simple and credulous, yielded to the promises of a Christian people, and abandoned themselves to a blind confidence, of which they very shortly became the victims. Scarcely had they laid down their arms when the chief of the Hungarians gave the signal for the carnage. The prayers, the tears of the Crusaders, the sacred sign which they bore upon their breasts, could not divert the blows of a perfidious and barbarous enemy. Their fate was worthy of pity, and history might have shed tears over it if they had themselves respected the laws of humanity.

We are doubtless the less astonished at the excesses of the first Crusaders, when we reflect that they belonged to the lowest class of the people, always blind, and always ready to abuse names and things the most holy, when not restrained by laws or leaders. The civil wars, which had so long disturbed Europe, had greatly increased the number of vagabonds and adventurers. Germany, more troubled than the other countries of the West, was filled with men trained in brigandage, and became the scourge of society. They almost all enrolled themselves under the banners of the cross, and carried with them into a new expedition the spirit of license and revolt with which they were animated.

There assembled on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle a new troop of Crusaders, more seditious, more undisciplined, even, than those of Peter and Gotschalk. They had been told that the crusade procured the forgiveness of all sins; and in this persuasion they committed the greatest crimes with security. Animated by a fanatical pride, they believed themselves entitled to despise and ill-treat all who did not join in the holy expedition. The war they were about to wage appeared to them so agreeable to God, and they thought by it to render such a signal service to the Church, that all the wealth of the earth would be scarcely sufficient to pay them for their devotion. Everything which fell into their hands appeared a conquest over the infidels, and became the just reward of their labours.

No captain durst place himself at the head of this ferocious troop; [55]they wandered on in disorder, and obeyed none but those who partook their wild delirium. A priest named Volkmar, and a Count Emicio, who thought to expiate the wildness of his youth by the excess of his fanaticism, attracted, by their declamations, the attention and confidence of the new Crusaders. These two chiefs were astonished that people should go so far to make war upon the Mussulmans, who kept up under their own law the tomb of Jesus Christ, whilst they left in peace a nation which had crucified its God. To inflame men’s passions still more, they took care to make heaven speak, and to support their opinions by miraculous visions. The people, for whom the Jews were everywhere an object of hatred and horror, had already shown themselves but too ready to persecute them. Commerce, which they almost alone carried on, had placed in their hands a great part of the gold then circulating in Europe. The sight of their wealth necessarily irritated the Crusaders, who were, for the most part, reduced to implore charity of the faithful to procure the means for undertaking their voyage. It is probable, likewise, that the Jews, by their railleries, insulted the enthusiasm of the Christians for the crusade.

All these motives, joined to the thirst for pillage, lit up the fires of persecution. Emicio and Volkmar gave both the signal and the example. At their voice a furious multitude spread themselves through the cities of the Rhine and the Moselle, massacring pitilessly all the Jews that they met with in their passage. In their despair, a great number of these victims preferred being their own destroyers, to awaiting certain death at the hands of their enemies. Several shut themselves up in their houses, and perished amidst flames which they themselves had kindled; some fastened large stones to their garments, and precipitated themselves and their treasures into the Rhine or the Moselle. Mothers stifled their children at the breast, saying that they preferred sending them thus to the bosom of Abraham, to seeing them given up to the fury of the Christians. Women and old men implored pity to assist them to die; all these wretched creatures calling upon death as earnestly as other men ask for life. In the midst of these scenes of desolation, history takes pleasure in doing justice to the enlightened zeal of the bishops of Worms, Trèves, Mayence, and Spiers, who raised the voice of religion and humanity, and opened their palaces as so many asylums for the Jews against the pursuit of murderers and villains.

The soldiers of Emicio prided themselves upon their exploits, and scenes of carnage filled them with exultation. As proud as if they had conquered the Saracens, they set out on their march, loaded with booty, invoking the heaven they had so cruelly outraged. They were slaves to the most brutal superstition, and caused themselves to be preceded by a goat and a goose, to which they attributed something divine. [56]These mean animals at the head of the battalions were as their chiefs, and shared the respect and confidence of the multitude, with all those who furnished examples of the most horrible excesses. All people fled at the approach of these dreaded champions of the cross. Christians who met them on their route were forced to applaud their zeal, whilst trembling for fear of becoming victims to it. This unrestrained multitude, without being acquainted with the people or the countries through which they had to pass, ignorant even of the disasters of those who had preceded them in this perilous career, advanced like a hurricane towards the plains of Hungary. Mersbourg shut its gates upon them, and refused them provisions. They were indignant that so little respect should be shown to the soldiers of Christ, and deemed it their duty to treat the Hungarians as they had treated the Jews. Mersbourg, [57]situated on the Leytha, a river which flows into the Danube, was defended by marshes. The Crusaders crossed the river, cut down a forest, and formed a causeway, which conducted them close under the walls of the place. After some preparation the signal was given, the ladders were raised against the ramparts, and the general assault was begun. The besieged opposed a spirited resistance, and showered upon their enemies a tempest of darts and arrows, with torrents of boiling oil. The besiegers, encouraging each other, redoubled their efforts. Victory appeared to be about to declare for them, when suddenly several ladders yielded to the weight of the assailants, and dragged down with them in their fall the parapets and the fragments of the towers that the rams had shaken. The cries of the wounded, and the rattling of the falling ruins, spread a panic among the Crusaders. They abandoned the half-destroyed ramparts, behind which their enemies trembled, and retired in the greatest disorder.