Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/31

 Peter the Hermit, a Latin monk, who had been so called on account of the rigid austerities and seclusion of his life, returned from a pilgrimage which he, like so many others, had made to the Holy Land. He had witnessed the hardships and barbarities to which the Christian sojourners in Jerusalem were subjected, and had doubtless undergone much himself. He determined, therefore, to devote his energies to the suppression of the evil, and applied to the Greek Patriarch Simeon for assistance in the good cause. The Greek empire was at this time in far too insecure and tottering a condition to admit the possibility of any armed intervention from that quarter, but Simeon warmly embraced the opportunity of rendering what help he could, and gave Peter a letter of recommendation to Urban II., who at that time occupied the chair of St. Peter. Fortified with this introduction, as well as with a second letter of similar tenor from Gerard, the rector of the Hospital of St. John at Jerusalem, the hermit proceeded to Rome and there pleaded his cause in person.

The result of these efforts forms a prominent feature in the history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The religious enthusiasm of Europe was aroused to a pitch of frenzy, and vast armaments assembled from all quarters and poured eastward. After the miserable dispersion of the first undisciplined mobs, who, led by the fanatic Peter, rushed forward in tumultuous disarray, the armed chivalry of Europe gradually collected on the plains before Constantinople, where they mustered a strength of 600,000 foot and 100,000 cavalry. This enormous force was under the chief command of Bohemond, son of the Count of Calabria. Its advance was marked by the successive capture of the cities of Nicea, Antioch, Tarsus, and Edessa, and at length, on the 7th June, 1099, it made its appearance before the Holy City. The caliph of Egypt, taking advantage of the warfare which the Turcomans were then carrying on against the Crusaders, had succeeded in once more obtaining possession of Palestine, and was at this period in occupation of Jerusalem, which he had garrisoned with a force of 40,000 men. There were also in the city about 20,000 Mahometan inhabitants capable of bearing arms. The force of the besiegers, diminished as they had been by their previous struggles and the privations