not sleep for several centuries.[522]

The first conspicuous appearance of it was in the reign of Philip
Augustus, when the mercenary troops, dismissed from the pay of that
prince and of Henry II., committed the greatest outrages in the south of
France. One Durand, a carpenter, deluded it is said by a contrived
appearance of the Virgin, put himself at the head of an army of the
populace, in order to destroy these marauders. His followers were styled
Brethren of the White Caps, from the linen coverings of their heads.
They bound themselves not to play at dice nor frequent taverns, to wear
no affected clothing, to avoid perjury and vain swearing. After some
successes over the plunderers, they went so far as to forbid the lords
to take any dues from their vassals, on pain of incurring the
indignation of the brotherhood. It may easily be imagined that they were
soon entirely discomfited, so that no one dared to own that he had
belonged to them.[523]

During the captivity of St. Louis in Egypt, a more extensive and
terrible ferment broke out in Flanders, and spread from thence over
great part of France. An impostor declared himself commissioned by the
Virgin to preach a crusade, not to the rich and noble, who for their
pride had been rejected of God, but the poor. His disciples were called
Pastoureaux, the simplicity of shepherds having exposed them more
readily to this delusion. In a short time they were swelled by the
confluence of abundant streams to a moving mass of a hundred thousand
men, divided into companies, with banners bearing a cross and a lamb,
and commanded by the impostor's lieutenants. He assumed a priestly
character, preaching, absolving, annulling marriages. At Amiens,
Bourges, Orleans, and Paris itself, he was received as a divine prophet.
Even the regent Blanche, for a time, was led away by the popular tide.
His main topic was reproach of the clergy for their idleness and
corruption--a theme well adapted to the ears of the people, who had long
been uttering similar strains of complaint. In some towns his followers
massacred the priests and plundered the monasteries. The government at
length began to exert itself; and the public sentiment turning against
the authors of so much confusion, this rabble was put to the sword or
dissipated.[524] Seventy years afterwards an insurrection, almost
exactly parallel to this, burst out under the same pretence of a
crusade. These insurgents, too, bore the name of Pasto