but the scum of the earth under their feet.

"So terrible were the tales that reached Europe that men came to think
that it would be a good deed truly to wrest the sepulcher of the Lord
from the hands of these heathens. Pope Urban was the first to give
authority and strength to the movement, and at a vast meeting at
Claremont of thirty thousand clergy and four thousand barons, it was
decided that war must be made against the infidel. From all parts of
France men flocked to hear Pope Urban preach there; and when he had
finished his oration the vast multitude, carried away by enthusiasm,
swore to win the holy sepulcher or to die.

"Mighty was the throng that gathered for the First Crusade. Monks threw
aside their gowns and took to the sword and cuirass; even women and
children joined in the throng. What, my son, could be expected from a
great army so formed? Without leaders, without discipline, without
tactics, without means of getting food, they soon became a scourge of
the country through which they passed.

"Passing through Hungary, where they greatly ravaged the fields, they
came to Bulgaria. Here the people, struck with astonishment and dismay
at this great horde of hungry people who arrived among them like
locusts, fell upon them with the sword, and great numbers fell. The
first band that passed into that country perished miserably, and of all
that huge assembly, it may be said that, numbering at the start not less
than two hundred and fifty thousand persons, only about one hundred
thousand crossed into Asia Minor. The fate of these was no better than
that of those who had perished in Hungary and Bulgaria. After grievous
suffering and loss they at last reached Nicaea. There they fell into an
ambuscade; and out of the whole of the undisciplined masses who had