I have dwelt thus on the Council of Clermont, and quoted from the speech of Pope Urban, that the reader might see clearly the mixed motives that stirred the heart of Europe for nearly two centuries, and nerved her warriors to the most noble, heroic and almost superhuman deeds of valor and endurance that have ever been emblazoned among the memorials of the mightiest heroes of this mortal race.
This was the declaration of war against the Mohammedan. The breaking up of the Council was the scattering of the firebrands of fanaticism. Pope Urban traversed several provinces of France that seemed to rise en masse to his appeals. France seemed to have no country but the Holy Land. Ease, property and life were cast into the sacrificial cause. All Christian nations seemed to forget their internal strifes, and to plunge headlong into the excitement of the hour. Western Europe resounded with the Papal Watchword: "He who will not take up his cross and come after me, is not worthy of me."
It must not be forgotten, however, that the political and physical condition of Europe contributed vastly to the warlike conflagration. The people groaned under feudal servitude and violence. Famine more or less severe, for years had contributed to robbery and brigandage. Commerce was almost destroyed, agriculture was neglected. Towns and cities were in ruins; lands everywhere were abandoned. The Church made her appeals popular. The Crusader was freed from all imposts and from pursuit by debts. The Cross suspended all laws and all menaces. Tyranny could not seek a wearer of the emblem nor could justice find the guilty. What wonder that an entire population rushed to a cause that absolved them from a grinding past and pictured so glowing a future! What wonder that the inexpiable wickedness of tyrannical baron and brutal knight sought expiation or at least relief by a desperate plunge into foreign martial excesses! What wonder if freebooters and robbers should join the ranks in hope of sharing the plunder of the conquered East! Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that over and above all love of glory, all true patriotism or base cupidity, towered the sublime passion, the pervading emotion of the hour. Religion smelted every other sentiment into harmonious union with her fervid zeal and her intense zealotry. Monks deserted their cloisters, anchorites their cells or forest retreats to mingle with and encourage the crusading throngs. Thieves and robbers came out of their hiding places to confess their sins and expiate offences by assuming the sacred badge.