ansports; while other authorities
reduce the number to twelve hundred, carrying from sixty to seventy
thousand men. Harold hastened from York, and fought a decisive battle
near Hastings, in which he met an honorable death, and his fortunate
rival soon reduced the country to submission.

At the same time, another William, surnamed Bras-de-fer, Robert
Guiscard, and his brother Roger, conquered Calabria and Sicily with a
handful of troops,(1058 to 1070.)

Scarcely thirty years after these memorable events, an enthusiastic
priest animated Europe with a fanatical frenzy and precipitated large
forces upon Asia to conquer the Holy Land.

At first followed by one hundred thousand men, afterward by two hundred
thousand badly-armed vagabonds who perished in great part under the
attacks of the Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Greeks, Peter the Hermit
succeeded in crossing the Bosporus, and arrived before Nice with from
fifty to sixty thousand men, who were either killed or captured by the
Saracens.

An expedition more military in its character succeeded this campaign of
religious pilgrims. One hundred thousand men, composed of French,
Burgundians, Germans, and inhabitants of Lorraine, under Godfrey of
Bouillon, marched through Austria on Constantinople; an equal number,
under the Count of Toulouse, marched by Lyons, Italy, Dalmatia, and
Macedonia; and Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, embarked with a force of
Normans, Sicilians, and Italians, and took the route by Greece on
Gallipolis.

This extensive migration reminds us of the fabulous expeditions of
Xerxes. The Genoese, Venetian, and Greek fleets were chartered to
transport these swarms of Crusaders by the Bosporus or Dardanelles to
Asia. More than four hundred thousand men were concentrated on the
plains of Nice, where they avenged the defeat of their predecessors.
Godfrey afterward led them across Asia and Syria as far as Jerusalem,
where he founded a kingdom.

All the maritime resources of Greece and the flourishing republics of
Italy were required to transport these masses across the Bosporus and in
provisioning them during the siege of Nice; and the great impulse thus
given to the coast states of Italy was perhaps the most advantageous
result of the Crusades.

This temporary success of the Crusaders became the source of great
disasters. The Mussulmans, heretofore divided among themselves, united
to resist the infidel, and divisions began to appear in the Christian
camps.