hich, with astonishing success, now began to be preached through all
Europe. This design was then, and it continued long after, the principle
which influenced the transactions of that period both at home and
abroad; it will, therefore, not be foreign to our subject to trace it to
its source.

As the power of the Papacy spread, the see of Rome began to be more and
more an object of ambition; the most refined intrigues were put in
practice to attain it; and all the princes of Europe interested
themselves in the contest. The election of Pope was not regulated by
those prudent dispositions which have since taken place; there were
frequent pretences to controvert the validity of the election, and of
course several persons at the same time laid claim to that dignity.
Popes and Antipopes arose. Europe was rent asunder by these disputes,
whilst some princes maintained the rights of one party, and some
defended the pretensions of the other: sometimes the prince acknowledged
one Pope, whilst his subjects adhered to his rival. The scandals
occasioned by these schisms were infinite; and they threatened a deadly
wound to that authority whose greatness had occasioned them. Princes
were taught to know their own power. That Pope who this day was a
suppliant to a monarch to be recognized by him could with an ill grace
pretend to govern him with an high hand the next. The lustre of the Holy
See began to be tarnished, when Urban the Second, after a long contest
of this nature, was universally acknowledged. That Pope, sensible by his
own experience of the ill consequence of such disputes, sought to turn
the minds of the people into another channel, and by exerting it
vigorously to give a new strength to the Papal power. In an age so
ignorant, it was very natural that men should think a great deal in
religion depended upon the very scene where the work of our Redemption
was accomplished. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were therefore judged highly
meritorious, and became very frequent. But the country which was the
object of them, as well as several of those through which the journey
lay, were in the hands of Mahometans, who, against all the rules of
humanity and good policy, treated the Christian pilgrims with great
indignity. These, on their return, filled the minds of their neighbors
with hatred and resentment against those infidels. Pope Urban laid hold
on this disposition, and encouraged Peter the Hermit, a man visionary,
zealous, enthusiasti