Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/364

 3i 4 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE as men, of central France and the Rhine Valley to seek the Holy Land. William Rufus, Philip I, and Henry IV, kings of England, France, and Germany respectively, were at this time all under papal excommunication and not one of them went on the crusade. But the feudal nobility from both northern and southern France and from Norman Italy took the cross with avidity. The pope, who was still en- gaged in the investiture struggle, sent a French bishop as his representative. The bands, made up partly of simple pious folk and partly of unruly vagabonds, which Peter the Hermit and similar March to popular preachers had gathered, contained few Asia Minor arm ed knights and either never reached even Constantinople or were cut to pieces by the Turks in Asia Minor. Their depredations in the countries of southeast- ern Europe through which they passed often led the natives to attack them. Or, if the crusaders were in too great force to be attacked, the peasants of the country would flee to woods and mountains until they had passed by. The feudal armies were more thorough and took longer in their preparations than the ill-organized bands which had preceded them, and crossed the Balkan peninsula to Con- stantinople in several contingents and by different routes. Godfrey of Bouillon led a great army from northeastern France and Lorraine in a quiet march across Germany and Hungary, reaching Constantinople just before Christmas, 1096. The Duke of Normandy, the Count of Flanders, and others from northern France took about the same route as the Normans of Italy under Bohemond, whose march was to Brindisi and then from Durazzo to Saloniki. The knights from southern France, under Raymond of Toulouse and the papal representative, crossed northern Italy, and then skirted the Adriatic to Durazzo and had to fight the Slavo- nians on their way. All these contingents arrived in the course of the spring of 1097. There were yet other leaders than those mentioned and the feudal lords were not inclined to take orders from one another, so that there was not hkoly to be much cooperation or maintenance of discipline.