slain; and when, in the spring of the next year, Godfrey de Bouillon and
the other Crusader chiefs, with a real army of knights and men-at-arms,
reached that locality, and marched to besiege Nicæa, the first important
Turkish stronghold on their line of march, they saw coming to meet them
a miserable band, with every indication of woful destitution, at whose
head appeared Peter the Hermit. It was the handful of destitute
wanderers that remained from the hundreds of thousands who had set out
with such high hopes a year before.
Thus began that great movement from Europe towards Asia, which was to
continue for several centuries, and end at length in disaster and
defeat. But we are concerned here only with Peter the Hermit, and the
conclusion of his career. He had set the flood in motion; how far was he
to be borne on its waves?
The chiefs of the army welcomed him with respect and consideration, and
heard with interest and feeling his account of the misfortunes of those
under his leadership, and how they were due to their own ignorance,
violence, and insubordination. With the few who survived from the
multitude he joined the crusading army, and regained the ardent hopes
which had almost vanished from his heart.
The army that reached Nicæa is said to have been six hundred thousand
strong, though they were probably not nearly so many. On they went with
many adventures, meeting the Turks in battle, suffering from hunger and
thirst, enduring calamities, losing many by death, until at length the
great city of Antioch was reached and besieged.
Here at first food was plenty and life easy. But the Turks held out,
winter came, provisions grew scarce, life ceased to be agreeable. Such
was the discouragement that succeeded that several men of note deserted
the army of the cross, among them Robert, duke of Normandy, William,
viscount of Melun, called the _Carpenter_, from his mighty battle-axe,
and Peter the Hermit himself. Their flight caused the greatest
indignation. Tancred, one of the leaders, hurried after and overtook
them, and brought them back to the camp, where they, overcome by shame,
swore on the Gospel never again to abandon the cause of the cross.
In time Antioch was taken, and the Turks therein massacred. But, unknown
to the Crusaders, an immense army of Turks was being organized in Syria
for its relief; and four days after its capture the Crusaders found
themselves in their turn besieged, the place being completely enclosed.
Day by day the blockade became more strict. Suffering from want of food
began. Starvation threatened the citizens and the army alike. It seemed
as if the crusade might end there and then, in the death or captivity of
all concerned in it; when an incident, esteemed miraculous, roused the
spirits of the soldiers and achieved their deliverance.
A priest of Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew by name, presented himself
before the chief and said that he had had a marvellous dream. St. Andrew
had thrice appeared to him, saying, "Go into the church of my brother
Peter at Antioch, and hard by the high altar thou wilt find, on digging
up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our Redeemer's side.
That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the deliverance of
the Christians."
The search was made, a spear-head was found, hope, confidence,
enthusiasm were restored, and with loud shouts the half-starved
multitude demanded that they should be led against the enemy. But before
doing so, the chiefs decided to apprise the leader of the Turks of their
intention, and for this purpose chose Peter the Hermit as their boldest
and ablest speaker.
Peter, therefore, under a flag of truce, sought the Turkish camp,
presented himself without any mark of respect before Corboghâ, the
leader of the Turks, and his captains, and boldly told them the decision
of the crusading chiefs.
"They offer thee," he said, "the choice between divers determinations:
either that thou appear alone in person to fight with one of our
princes, in order that, if victorious, thou mayst obtain all thou canst
demand, or, if vanquished, thou mayst remain quiet; or again, pick out
divers of thine who shall fight, on the same terms, with the same number
of ours; or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one against
the other, the fortune of battle."
Corboghâ received this challenge as an amusing jest, saying that the
chiefs must be in a desperate state to send him such a proposition. "Go,
and tell these fools," he said, "that all whom I shall find in full
possession of all the powers of the manly age shall have their lives,
and shall be reserved by me for my master's service, and that all others
shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shall
remain of them not even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it more
convenient to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword,
I should already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they
would have reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing the
law of vengeance."
Corboghâ spoke much too hastily. Before night of the next day he was a
helpless fugitive, his army destroyed or dispersed. Peter the Hermit
returned with his message, but, by the advice of Godfrey de Bouillon,
he simply announced that the Turks desired battle, and that instant
preparation for it must be made. On the next day the whole Christian
army, armed and enthusiastic, issued from the city, a part of the clergy
marching at their head, the miraculous spear-head borne before them, and
attacked the Turks in their camp. The battle was long, fierce, and
stubborn, but in the end the Turks gave way before the fury of Christian
enthusiasm, and fled for their lives, vast multitudes of them being
slain on the field, while the vain-glorious Corboghâ rode in all haste,
with a weak escort, towards far-off Bagdad.
The camp of the Turks was taken and pillaged. It yielded fifteen
thousand camels and an unnamed multitude of horses. The tent of Corboghâ
proved a rich prize. It was laid out in streets, flanked by towers, in
imitation of a fortified town, was everywhere enriched with gold and
precious stones, and was so spacious that it would have contained more
than two thousand persons. It was sent to Italy, where it was long
preserved. So great was the spoil that, says Albert of Aix, "every
Crusader found himself richer than he had been at starting from Europe."
In June, 1099, the Crusaders arrived before Jerusalem, and saw with eyes
of wonder and delight the vision of the Holy City which they had come so
far to gaze upon. After a month of siege the chiefs fixed a day for the
grand assault, and on the day preceding that chosen the whole army
marched, fasting, and preceded by their priests, in slow procession
round the walls, halting at every hallowed spot, listening to the hymns
and exhortations of their priests, and looking upward with wrathful eyes
at the insults heaped by the Islamites upon the cross and other symbols
of the Christian faith.
"Ye see," cried Peter the Hermit, "the blasphemies of God's enemies.
Now, this I swear to you by your faith; this I swear to you by the arms
you carry; to-day these infidels are still full of pride and insolence,
but to-morrow they shall be frozen with fear; those mosques, which tower
over Christian ruins, shall serve for temples to the true God, and
Jerusalem shall hear no longer aught but the praises of the Lord."
His words were received with shouts of applause by the whole army. His
had been the first voice to call Europe to the deliverance of the Holy
City; now, with a strong army to back him, he gazed on the walls of
Jerusalem, still in the hands of the infidels, likely soon to be in the
hands of the Christians. Well might he feel joy and self-gratification,
in thinking that all this was his work, and that he had been the apostle
of the greatest event in modern history.
On the next day, July 14, 1099, the assault began at daybreak. On
Friday, the 15th, Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Crusaders, and
the mission of Peter the Hermit was accomplished, the Holy City was won.
With that great day ended the active part played by Peter the Hermit in
history. He was received with the greatest respect by the Christian
dwellers in Jerusalem, who exerted themselves to render him the highest
honors, and attributed to him alone, after God, their deliverance from
the sufferings which they had so long endured. On his return to Europe
he founded a monastery near Hue, in the diocese of Liége, where he spent
the remainder of his life in retirement, respected and honored by all,
and died there on the 11th of July, 1115.
_THE COMMUNE OF LAON._
The history of the kingdoms of Europe has a double aspect, that of the
arrogant rule of kings and nobles, and that of the enforced submission
and occasional insurrection of the common people, whom the governing
class despised while subsisting on the products of their labor, as a
tree draws its nutriment from the base soil above which it proudly
rises. Insurrections of the peasantry took place at times, we have said,
though, as a rule, nothing was gained by them but blows and bloodshed.
We have described such outbreaks in England. France had its share of
them, all of which were speedily and cruelly suppressed. It was not by
armed insurrection that the peasantry gained the measure of liberty they
now possess. Their gradual emancipation was gained through unceasing
protest and steady pressure, and in no sense by revolt and bloodshed.
A different story must be told of the towns. In these the common people
were concentrated and well organized, and possessed skilled leaders and
strong walls. They understood the political situation, struck for a
definite purpose, and usually gained it. The history of nearly every
town in France tells of some such demand for chartered privileges,
ordinarily ending in the freeing of the town from the tyranny of the
nobles. Each town had its municipal government, the _Commune_. It was
this body which spoke for the burghers, which led in the struggle for
liberty, and which succeeded in gaining for most of the towns a charter
of rights and privileges. Many stirring incidents might be told of this
fight for freedom. We shall confine ourselves to the story of the revolt
of the Commune of Laon, of which a sprightly contemporary description
exists.
At the end of the eleventh century Laon was a bustling and important
city. It was the seat of a cathedral and under the government of a
bishop; was wealthy and prosperous, stirring and turbulent; was the
gathering-place of the surrounding people, the centre of frequent
disturbances. Thierry draws a vivid picture of the state of affairs
existing within its walls. "The nobles and their servitors," he says,
"sword in hand, committed robbery upon the burghers; the streets of the
town were not safe by night nor even by day, and none could go out
without running a risk of being stopped and robbed or killed. The
burghers in their turn committed violence upon the peasants, who came to
buy or sell at the market of the town."
Truly, town life and country life alike were neither safe nor agreeable
in those charming mediæval days when chivalry was the profession of all
and the possession of none, when the nobility were courteous in word and
violent in deed, and when might everywhere lorded it over right, and
conscience was but another word for desire. As for the treatment of the
peasantry by the townsmen, we may quote from Guibert, an abbot of
Nogent-sous-Coucy, to whose lively pen we owe all we have to tell about
Laon.
"Let me give as example," he says, "a single fact, which had it taken
place among the Barbarians or the Scythians would assuredly have been
considered the height of wickedness, in the judgment even of those who
know no law. On Saturday the inhabitants of the country places used to
leave their fields and come from all sides to Laon to get provisions at
the market. The townsfolk used then to go round the place carrying in
baskets or bowls or otherwise samples of vegetables or grain or any
other article, as if they wished to sell. They would offer them to the
first peasant who was in search of such things to buy; he would promise
to pay the price agreed upon; and then the seller would say to the
buyer, 'Come with me to my house to see and examine the whole of the
articles I am selling you.' The other would go; and then, when they came
to the bin containing the goods, the honest seller would take off and
hold up the lid, saying to the buyer, 'Step hither and put your head or
arms into the bin to make quite sure that it is all exactly the same
goods as I showed you outside.' And then when the other, jumping on to
the edge of the bin, remained leaning on his belly, with his head and
shoulders hanging down, the worthy seller, who kept in the rear, would
hoist up the thoughtless rustic by the feet, push him suddenly into the
bin, and, clapping on the lid as he fell, keep him shut up in this safe
prison until he had bought himself out."
This has more the aspect of a practical joke than an act of barbarism.
But withal, between the cheating of the peasantry by the burghers, the
robbery of the burghers by the nobles, and the general turmoil and
terror, there might have been found more delightful places of residence
than the good city of Laon in the eleventh century. The story of this
city is a long one. We are here concerned with but one episode in the
tale.
In the year 1106 the bishopric of Laon, which had been for two years
vacant, was bought by Gaudri, a Norman by birth, and a man of no very
savory reputation. He was a clergyman with the habits of a soldier,
hasty and arrogant in disposition, hurrying through the service of the
mass, and dallying with delight over narratives of fighting and hunting,
one of the churchmen of wickedly worldly tastes of which those days
presented so many examples.
Laon soon learned something of the character of its new bishop. Not long
was he in office before outrages began. He seized one man whom he
suspected of aiding his enemies, and put out his eyes. Another was
murdered in the church itself, with his connivance. In his deeds of
violence or vengeance he employed a black slave, imitating in this some
of the Crusaders, who brought with them such servants from the east. No
lawless noble could have shown more disregard of law or justice than
this dignitary of the church, and the burghers of Laon viewed with
growing indignation his lawless and merciless course.
Taking advantage of the absence of Bishop Gaudri in England, the
burghers bribed the clergy and knights who governed in his stead, and
obtained from them the privilege of choosing their own rulers. "The
clergy and knights," we are told, "came to an agreement with the common
folk in hopes of enriching themselves in a speedy and easy fashion." A
commune was set up, and given the necessary powers and immunities.
Gaudri returned, and heard with fierce wrath of what had been done in
his absence. For several days he stayed outside the walls, clouding and
thundering. Then the burghers applied the same plaster to his wrath as
they had done to the virtue of his representatives. They offered him
money, "enough to appease the tempest of his words." He accepted the
bribe and swore to respect the commune. This done, he entered the city
in state.
The burghers knew him somewhat too well to trust him. There were higher
powers in France than Bishop Gaudri, which were known to be susceptible
to the same mercenary argument. A deputation was therefore sent to King
Louis the Fat at Paris, laden with rich presents, and praying for a
royal confirmation of the commune. The king loved the glitter of cash;
he accepted the presents, swore that the commune should be respected,
and gave Laon a charter sealed with the great seal of the crown. All
that the citizens were to do in return, beyond meeting the customary
crown claims, was to give the king three lodgings a year, if he came to
the town, or in lieu thereof, if he failed to come, twenty livres for
each lodging.
For three years all went well in Laon. The burghers were happy in their
security and proud of their liberty, while clergy and knights were
occupied in spending the money they had received. The year 1112 came.
The bishop and his subordinates had got rid of their money, and craved
again the power they had sold. They began to consider how the citizens
might once more be made serfs. They would not have hesitated long but
for that inconvenient grant of Louis the Fat. But King Louis might be
managed. He was normally avaricious. The bishop invited him to Laon to
take part in the keeping of Holy Week, trusting to get his aid to
overthrow the commune.
The king came. The burghers were not long in suspecting the cause of his
coming. They offered him some four hundred livres to confirm them in
their liberties. The bishop and his party offered him seven hundred
livres to restore their power. The higher offer prevailed. The charter
was annulled, and the magistrates of the commune were ordered to cease
from their functions, to give up the seal and the banner of the town,
and no more to ring the belfry-chimes which indicated the beginning and
the ending of their sessions.
Wrath and uproar succeeded this decree. The burghers had tasted the
sweets of liberty, and were not ready to lose their dearly-bought
independence. So violent were they that the king himself was frightened,
and hastily left his hotel for the stronger walls of the episcopal
palace. At dawn of the next day, partly in fear and perhaps partly in
shame, he departed from Laon with all his train, leaving the Easter
festival to take place without him.
It was destined to be a serious festival for Bishop Gaudri and his crew
of base-souled followers. The king had left a harvest of indignation
behind him. On the day after his going all shops and taverns were kept
closed and nothing was sold; every one remained at home, nursing his
wrath. The next day the anger of the citizens grew more demonstrative. A
rumor spread that the bishop and grandees were busy calculating the
fortunes of the citizens, that they might force from them the sum
promised the king. The burghers assembled in burning indignation, and
forty of them bound themselves by oath to kill the bishop and all those
who had aided him to destroy the commune.
Some rumor of this got afloat. Anselm, the arch-deacon, warned the
bishop that his life was in danger, and urged him not to leave his
house, and, in particular, not to accompany the procession on
Easter-day. Thus Cæsar had been warned, and had contemned the warning.
Gaudri emulated him, and answered, with a sneer of contempt,--
"Pooh! _I_ die by the hands of such fellows!"
Easter-day came. The bishop did not appear at matins, or at the later
church service. But, lest he should be called coward, he joined the
procession, followed by his clergy and domestics, and by a number of
knights with arms and armor concealed under their clothes. Slowly
through the streets moved the procession, the people looking on in
lowering silence. As it passed a dark arch one of the forty rushed
suddenly out, crying, "Commune! commune!" No one joined him; the crowd
seemed intimidated; their feelings subsided in a murmur; the procession
continued on its way undisturbed.
The next day another procession took place. This day the bishop had
filled the town with peasants, who were charged to protect his church,
his palace, and himself. The people kept quiet. All went well. Bishop
Gaudri, satisfied that the talk of danger was all a myth, now dismissed
the peasants, feeling quite secure.
"On the fourth day after Easter," says Guibert of Nogent, "my corn
having been pillaged in consequence of the disorder that reigned in the
town, I repaired to the bishop, and prayed him to put a stop to this
state of violence.
"'What do you suppose,' said he to me, 'these fellows can do with all
their outbreaks? Why, if my blackamoor, John, were to pull the nose of
the most formidable amongst them, the poor devil durst not even grumble.
Have I not forced them to give up what they called their commune, for
the whole duration of my life?'
"I held my tongue," adds Guibert; "many folks besides me warned him of
his danger, but he would not deign to believe anybody."
For three days all kept quiet. The bishop and his myrmidons busied
themselves in calculating how much cash they could squeeze from the
people. The people lowered like a gathering storm. All at once the storm
broke. A sudden tumult arose; crowds filled the streets. "Commune!
commune!" was the general cry; as if by magic, swords, lances, axes,
bows, and clubs appeared in the hands of the people; with wild shouts of
vengeance they rushed through the streets and burst into the bishop's
palace. The knights who had promised to protect him hastened thither and
faced the infuriated populace. The first three who appeared were hotly
attacked and fell before the axes of the burghers. The others held back.
In a few minutes more flames appeared in the palace, and in no long time
it was a mass of seething fire. The day of vengeance had come.
The bishop had fled to the church. Here, having no means of defence, he
hastily put on the dress of one of his servants and repaired to the
church cellar, where were a number of empty casks. One of these he got
into, a faithful follower then heading him in, and even stopping up the
bung-hole. Meanwhile, the crowd were in eager quest for the object of
their wrath. The palace had been searched before being set on fire; the
church and all accompanying buildings now swarmed with revengeful
burghers. Among these was a bandit named Teutgaud, a fellow notorious
for his robberies and murders of travellers, but now hand and glove with
the commune. The bishop had named him _Isengrin_, the by-word then for
wolf.
This worthy made his way into the cellar, followed by an armed crowd.
Through this they went, tapping the casks as they proceeded. Teutgaud
halted in front of that in which the bishop was concealed--on what
suspicion does not appear.
"Knock in the head of this," he ordered.
He was quickly obeyed.
"Is there any one here?" he asked.
"Only a poor prisoner," came a quavering voice from the depths of the
cask.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Teutgaud; "so it is you, Master Isengrin, who are
hiding here!"
Seizing the trembling bishop by the hair, he dragged him without
ceremony from the cask. The frightened culprit fell on his knees and
begged piteously for his life. He would do anything; he would give up
the bishopric, yield them all the money he had, and leave the country.
Insults and blows were the only replies. In a minute more the
unfortunate man was dead. Teutgaud, true to his profession, cut off his
finger to obtain the episcopal ring that glittered on it. Stripped of
its clothing, the body was hurled into a corner, and the furious throng
flung stones and mud at it, as the only vent remaining to their
revengeful passions.
All that day and the night that followed the armed and maddened townsmen
searched the streets and houses of Laon for the supporters of the
murdered bishop, and numbers of them shared his fate. Not the guilty
alone, but many of the innocent, perished before the blind wrath of the
multitude. "The progress of the fire," says Guibert, "kindled on two
sides at once, was so rapid, and the winds drove the flames so furiously
in the direction of the convent of St. Vincent, that the monks were
afraid of seeing all they possessed become the fire's prey, and all the
persons who had taken refuge in this monastery trembled as if they had
seen swords hanging over their heads."