volume one

HISTORY or TUE CRUSADES. ^il
could fill Ills heart or satisfy his ardent mind. Disgusted
with the world and mankind, he retired amongst the most
austere cenobites. Fasting, prayer, meditation, the silence
of sohtude, exalted his imagination. In his visions he kept
up an habitual commerce ^Yith heaven, and believed himself
the instrument of its designs, and the depositary of its will.
He possessed the fervour of an apostle, with the courage of a
martyr. His zeal gave way to no obstacle, and all that he
desired seemed easy of attainment. AYhen he spoke, the
passions with which he was agitated animated his gestures
and his words, and communicated themselves to his auditors.*
Such was the extraordinary man who gave the
signal to the Crusaders, and who, without fortune and
without name, by the ascendancy of his tears and prayers
alone, succeeded in moving the West to precipitate itself in
a mass upon Asia.
The fame of the pilgrimages to the East drew Peter from
his retreat, and he followed into Palestine the crowd of
Christians who went to visit the holy places. The sight of
Jerusalem excited him much more than any of the other
pilgrims, for it created in his ardent mind a tliousand conflicting
sentiments. In the city, which exhibited everywhere
marks of the mercy and the anger of Grod, all objects
inflamed his piety, irritated his devotion and his zeal, and
filled him by turns with respect, terror, and indignation.
After ha^dng followed his brethren to Calvary and tlie tomb
of Christ, he repaired to the patriarch of Jerusalem. The
* Anna Comnena calls Peter the Kermit Cucvpiettore, which appears
to be taken from the Picard word kiokio, little, and from the word Petrus,
Peter, little Peter. If we are to believe Oderic- Vital, the hermit had
still another name, and was called Peter of Achiris. He is styled in this
manner in the chronicle of the counts of Anjou ; " Heremita quidam
Petrus Achiriensis." William of Tyre informs us that he was a hermit
in name and in fact :
^^ Heremita nomine et effectu.^' Adrian Barland,
in his book De Gestis Ducnm Brabantits, expresses himself thus :
*' Petrus Heremita, Arabianensis, vir nobilis, prima setate rei militari
deditus, tametsi litteris optimo imbutus, sed corpore deformis ac brevis
staturae," &c. The life of Peter the Hermit has been written by Andre
Thevet, in his " History of the most Illustrious and Learned Men of
their Ages," and by Father Outtreman, a Jesuit. Several families have
pretended to be descended from Peter the Hermit. The most rational
and best supported claim is that of the family of Souliers, which still exists
in the Limousin.
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