A spectator standing on one of the heights of
the city might have seen swarms like wandering tribes approach along
the ancient Roman roads from north, south, east, and west; and, had he
mixed among them, might have had difficulty in discovering their home.
Italians, Provencals, Frenchmen, Hungarians, Slavs, Germans,
Spaniards, even Englishmen came.

Italy gave free passage to pilgrims and kept the Truce of God. The
crowds arrived, wearing the pilgrim's mantle or clad in their national
dress, on foot, on horseback, or on cars, leading the ill and weary,
and laden with their luggage. Veterans of a hundred were led by their
grandsons; and youths bore, like AEneas, father or mother on their
shoulders. They spoke in many dialects, but they all sang in the same
language the litanies of the Church, and their longing dreams had but
one and the same object.

On beholding in the sunny distance the dark forest of towers of the
holy city they raised the exultant shout, "Rome, Rome!" like sailors
who after a tedious voyage catch their first glimpse of land. They
threw themselves down in prayer and rose again with the fervent cry,
"St. Peter and St. Paul, have mercy." They were received at the gates
by their countrymen and by guardians appointed by the city to show
them their quarters; nevertheless, they first made their way to St.
Peter's, ascended the steps of the vestibule on their knees, and then
threw themselves in ecstasies on the grave of the apostle.

During an entire year Rome swarmed with pilgrims and was filled with a
perfect babel of tongues. It was said that thirty thousand pilgrims
entered and left the city daily, and that daily two hundred thousand
pilgrims might have been found within it. An exemplary administration
provided for order and for moderate prices. The year was fruitful, the
Campagna and the neighboring provinces sent supplies in abundance. One
of the pilgrims who was a chronicler relates that "bread, wine, meat,
fish, and oats were plentiful and cheap in the market; the hay,
however, was very dear; the inns so expensive that I was obliged to
pay for my bed and the stabling of my horse (beyond the hay and oats)
a Tornese groat a day. As I left Rome on Christmas eve, I saw so large
a party of pilgrims depart that no one could count the number. The
Romans reckon that altogether they have had two millions of men and
women. I frequently saw both sexes trodden under foot, and it was
sometimes with difficulty