volume one

442 HISTOSY OF THE CRUSADES.
alienated the domains of the cro\m, and put to sale all the
great di2:nities of the kingdom ; lie would sell, he said, the
city of Loudon, if he coidd fijid a purchaser. He went
afterwards into Xorraandy, where the ''Estates" permitted
him to exhaust that rich province, and gave him full means
to support a war in which the whole people took so great an
interest.
A great number of warriors assumed the cross in France
and England, and the preparations for the crusade were
finished amidst general fermentation. Many barons and
lords, however, did not announce the period of their departure,
and delayed, under various pretexts, the pilgrimage
to which they had engaged themselves bv oath. The celebrated
Peter of Blois, addressed a pathetic exhortation to
them, in which he compared them to reapers who put off
beginning their work until the harvest was finished. The
orator of the holy war represented to them that strong and
courageous men found a countiy everywhere, and that true
pilgrims ought to resemble the birds of heaven.* He recalled
to their ambition the example of Abraham, who abandoned
liis home to elevate himself among the nations, who crossed
the Jordan with a staff only, and retiu-ned followed bv two
*
•
troops of warriors. This exhortation revived the ardour for
the crusade, which had evidently begim to cool. The monarchs
of Prance and England had an interview at Xonan-
court, where they agreed to proceed to Palestine by sea.
They made, at the same time, several regulations to secure
order and discipline in the armies they were about to lead
into Asia. The laws of religion, and the penalties that they
inflict, did not appear to them suflicient in this case. The
justice of these barbarous ages was charged ^-ith the onerous
task of suppressing the passions and Wees of the Crusaders:
whoever gave a blow, was to be plunged three times into the
* The discourse of Feter of Blois, -nrhich is printed in his works, has
for title, Tractatiis de Jerosolymitand Peregrinaiione. After having
quoted several passages from the Bible and Testament to exhort the Crusaders
to set out. he cites two verses from the tenth chapter of Juvenal,
and two verses from the Fasti of Ovid. He is not satisfied with presenting
to the pilgrims the example of Abraham, but points out to them
all the kings and captains of profane antiquity. Peter of Blois does not
spare, in his discourse, the princes and nobles who compelled the clergy
to pay tribute towards the expenses of the holy war.