twitted the Christians with the worship of a Jewish
prophet as a God.

[Sidenote: _Slaughter of Jews_]

Whatever was the proportion of motive, it is certain that this mob fell
on the Jews and robbed and killed all they found in the cities of the
Rhine and the Moselle. It is said that many perished by kindling flames
they felt to be more merciful than their Christian persecutors. Others,
with stones tied to their necks, drowned themselves and their treasures
in the adjacent rivers. Let us be thankful that there was pity somewhere
and that the Bishops of Worms, Treves, Mayence, and Spires gave asylum
to the persecuted race and denounced the marauding bands as beyond the
pale of the Church.

[Sidenote: _A Goose for a Leader_]

[Sidenote: _Fear of such Maniacs_]

This band set out for Jerusalem in pious rapture that the soldiers of
God had been given victory and had been supplied by the God of Battles
with money for the journey! Blinded with superstition, they measure
themselves to us by what they did. Albert of Aix tells us that they
found a goose "filled with the Holy Ghost," which they made leader in
equal authority with a goat not less filled with the same Spirit (_et
capellam non minus eodem repletam_)! Fear of such maniacs closed the
gates of Hungarian cities. The city now known among Germans as
Ungarish-Altenburg, situated in the marshy embouchure of the Leytha, was
attacked by them by means of a causeway made of the trunks of trees.
Ladders were built, and walls, defended by darts, arrows, and boiling
oil, were almost scaled and won, when the breaking of ladders caused a
panic and the plain was soon covered by fugitives who had, like all
panicky soldiers, thrown away their arms. Multitudes of these were
butchered without resistance while others died hopelessly mired in the
marshes.

[Sidenote: _Horrors of the March_]

Surely these are enough to show the horrors of such marches in the name
of Christ. A sentence may express the fate of those who survived. The
Bulgarians almost finished what the Huns began. The Greeks received the
news with joy.

[Sidenote: _Forget Their Lessons_]

At length Peter and Walter, between them, could muster an army of one
hundred thousand men, when the re-enforcements from Italian cities were
counted. Still under the walls of Constantinople it was not long before
they forgot the lessons of their defeats and began again to rob and
murder. Alexius soon found it expedient to ferry