Peter the Hermit

Peter the Hermit, by Daniel A.
Goodsell

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Title: Peter the Hermit A Tale of Enthusiasm
Author: Daniel A. Goodsell
Release Date: July 25, 2007 [EBook #22147]
Language: English
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THE HERMIT ***

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Men of the Kingdom
Peter the Hermit A STORY OF ENTHUSIASM

By DANIEL A. GOODSELL
A Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM NEW YORK: EATON
AND MAINS
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY JENNINGS AND GRAHAM

PREFACE
Original material for a biography of Peter the Hermit either does not
exist in this country, or, if here, does not yield itself readily to
knowledge and use. The "Life of Peter the Hermit," by D'Outremant,
and another by André Thevet, on which Michaud draws heavily, seem
beyond reach, as are also the histories of the Crusades, by von Raumer
and Maunbourg.
On examining a number of English and American "Histories of the
Crusades," I found them to be largely abridgments or paraphrases of
Michaud's monumental work.
It is, then, from Michaud and Milman chiefly that the writer has drawn
the facts herein recorded, having often found it necessary to chasten the
too pronounced Roman sympathies of Michaud by the equally
pronounced Protestantism of Milman. To these authors I am so much
indebted as to call for the fullest acknowledgment. The Rev. Dr. J. A.
Faulkner, Professor in Drew Theological Seminary, has put me under
great obligations by permitting me to use Hagenmeyer's "Life of Peter,"
especially valuable to the early and late parts of Peter's life.
BROOKLINE, June, 1906.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. PETER THE HERMIT, 7
II. THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE, 25
III. THE MARCH AND THE BATTLE, 44
IV. THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, 82

Peter the Hermit
CHAPTER I.
PETER THE HERMIT.
THE FOREGROUND.
The great movements called the Crusades followed the leading of
universal religious instincts.
[Sidenote: The Cause of Pilgrimages]
[Sidenote: Belong to all Religions]
[Sidenote: The Impulse of To-day.]
[Sidenote: Pilgrimages and Historic Memory]
Wherever a great leader has been born, has taught, has suffered, died,
or been buried, the feet of his followers have been glad to stand. At
such spots religious emotions are revived, holy influences are believed
to be absorbed, and a sense of nearness to the prophets of God acquired.
Whatever the teacher wore, used, or even looked upon, became a
treasure through its relation to him. In India pilgrimages to holy shrines,
rivers, and cities have been works of merit, even from prehistoric times.
The same is true of China as to temples, tombs, springs, and mountain

summits. Devotees of later religions, like that of Mahomet, have their
Meccas, as the Roman Church has her Loretto and her Lourdes. The
murder of Thomas á Becket was followed by the Canterbury
pilgrimages, immortalized by Chaucer. "From the lowest Fetichism up
to Christianity itself this general and unconquerable propensity has
either been sanctioned by religion or sprung up out of it."[1] Humanity
leans more readily on the Incarnate Savior than on Him who was
"before the world was." To-day the devout Christian feels the impulse
to walk where the Master walked, to behold the sea which He stilled, to
sit by the well where He preached, to pray in the garden of His agony,
and to stand on the summit above which He shone. And if his faith can
be assured as to the site of Calvary, the great tragedy loses all historical
dimness and is made real, visible, and present, though its story be read
through penitent tears. The place suggests the man; the man suggests
the Divine Man; He seems nearer when we worship where an apostle
said, "My Lord and my God."
[Sidenote: The East the Fountain of Religions]
[Sidenote: Influence of Magna Græcia]
The East has always been the fountain of religions to the European
mind. To the westward flowed the stream of doctrines which sprang up
in the Orient. We are beginning to see that Greece came to many of her
gods through instruction from the Asiatic continent, and that her
originality in religion lay chiefly in her refinement of nature worship
and in the beautiful marble forms in which Greek genius enshrined her
divinities. From Greece the stream reached Italy in Magna Græcia, and
later by the adoption through Roman assimilation of the gods of the
Greek Pantheon. The worship