in the mosques, in the streets, underground,
and wherever they had attempted to find refuge: a number exceeding that
of the armed inhabitants and the garrison of the city. Battle-madness,
thirst for vengeance, ferocity, brutality, greed, and every hateful
passion were satiated without scruple, in the name of their holy cause.
When they were weary of slaughter, "orders were given," says Robert the
monk, "to those of the Saracens who remained alive and were reserved for
slavery, to clean the city, remove from it the dead, and purify it from
all traces of such fearful carnage. They promptly obeyed; removed, with
tears, the dead; erected outside the gates dead-houses fashioned like
citadels or defensive buildings; collected in baskets dissevered limbs;
carried them away, and washed off the blood that stained the floors of
temples and houses."

Eight or ten days after the capture of Jerusalem, the crusader chiefs
assembled to deliberate upon the election of a king of their prize.
There were several who were suggested for it and might have pretended to
it. Robert Shorthose, duke of Normandy, gave an absolute refusal,
"liking better," says an English chronicler, "to give himself up to
repose and indolence in Normandy than to serve, as a soldier, the King of
kings: for which God never forgave him." Raymond, count of Toulouse, was
already advanced in years, and declared "that he would have a horror of
bearing the name of king in Jerusalem, but that he would give his consent
to the election of anyone else." Tancred was and wished to be only the
first of knights. Godfrey de Bouillon the more easily united votes in
that he did not seek them. He was valiant, discreet, worthy, and modest;
and his own servants, being privately sounded, testified to his
possession of the virtues which are put in practice without any show. He
was elected King of Jerusalem, and he accepted the burden whilst refusing
the insignia. "I will never wear a crown of gold," he said, "in the
place where the Saviour of the world was crowned with thorns." And he
assumed only the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre.

It is a common belief amongst historians that after the capture of
Jerusalem, and the election of her king, Peter the Hermit entirely
disappeared from history. It is true that he no longer played an active
part, and that, on returning to Europe, he went into retirement near Huy,
in the diocese of Lige, where he founded a monaste