volume one

HISTOET OF THE CRUSADES. 21
preserve tlie tradition of a miracle, or had not a eliapel open
to pilgrims. The most guilty of sinners, or the most ferve;it
of the faithful, exposed themselves to the greatest perils,
and repaired to the most distant places. Sometimes they
directed their steps to Apulia and Calabria, they visited
Mount Gargan, celebrated by the apparition of St. Michael,
or Mount Cassin, rendered famous by the miracles of St.
sometimes they traversed the Pyrenees, and, in a
Benedict ;
country given up to the Saracens, esteemed themselves happy
in praying before the relics of St. Jago, the patron saint of
Gralicia. Some, like King E-obert, went to Rome, and
prostrated themselves on the tombs of the apostles St, Peter
and St. Paul ; others travelled as far as Egypt, where Christ
had passed his infancy, and penetrated to the solitudes of
Scete and Memphis, inhabited by the
.and Paul.
disciples of Anthony
A great number of pilgrims undertook the voyage to
they entered Jerusalem by the gate of Ephraim,
Palestine ;
where they paid a tribute to the Saracens. After having
prepared themselves by fasting and prayer, they presented
themselves in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, covered
with a funeral cloth or robe, which they preserv^ed with care
during the remainder of their lives, and in which they were
buried after their death. They viewed with holy respect
Mount Sion, the Mount of Olives, and the Valley of Jehoshaphat
; they quitted Jerusalem to visit Bethlehem, where the
Saviour of the world was born ; INIount Tabor, rendered
sacred by the transfiguration ; and all the places memorable
for his miracles. The pilgrims next bathed in the waters of
the Jordan,* and gathered in the territory of Jericho palms
which they bore back as e^adences and relics to the West.
Such were the devotion and spirit of the tenth and
eleventh centuries, that the greater part of the Christians
would have thought themselves wanting in the duties of
religion if they had not performed some pilgrimage. He
who had escaped from a danger, or triumphed over his
enemies, assumed the pilgrim's staif, and took the road to
the holy places ; he who had obtained by his prayers the
* These and the following details have been drawn from the accounts
of several 'pilgrimages, in Mabillon, in the " Recueil des Bollandistes,"
and the chronicles of the times.