The months which followed the Council of Clermont were
marked by an epidemic of religious excitement in western Europe. Popular
preachers everywhere took up the cry "God wills it!" and urged their
hearers to start for Jerusalem. A monk named Peter the Hermit aroused large
parts of France with his passionate eloquence, as he rode from town to town,
carrying a huge cross before him and preaching to vast crowds. Without waiting
for the main body of nobles, which was to assemble at Constantinople in the
summer of 1096 A.D., a horde of poor men, women, and children set out,
unorganized and almost unarmed, on the road to the Holy Land. One of these
crusading bands, led by Peter the Hermit, managed to reach Constantinople,
after suffering terrible hardships. The emperor Alexius sent his ragged allies
as quickly as possible to Asia Minor, where most of them were slaughtered by
the Turks.
THE MAIN CRUSADE
Meanwhile real armies were gathering in the West. Recruits
came in greater numbers from France than from any other country, a circumstance
which resulted in the crusaders being generally called "Franks" by
their Moslem foes. They had no single commander, but each contingent set out
for Constantinople by its own route and at its own time.
