Peter the Hermit, the preacher and main cause of the first Crusade, was born about the year 1050, of a noble family of Picardy. He was at first, like all men of gentle birth of his time, a soldier, and fought in some at least of the wars that were going on around him. For some cause—no one knows why—perhaps disgusted with the world, perhaps struck with repentance for a criminal or dissolute life—he withdrew from his fellow-men, and became a hermit. But it would seem that his turbulent and unquiet spirit could not stand the monotony, though it might support the austerities, of a hermit’s life, and he resolved about the year 1093 to go as a pilgrim to Palestine. He found the pilgrims miserable indeed. As most of them had been robbed or exorbitantly charged on the road, there was not one in a hundred who, on arriving before Jerusalem, found himself able to pay the fee demanded for admittance within the gates. The hapless Christians, starving and helpless, lay outside the walls, dependent on the small supplies which their brethren within could send them. Many of them died; many more turned away without having been able to enter the city; famine, thirst, nakedness, and the sword of the infidel, constantly thinned their ranks, which were as constantly renewed. Even if they got within the walls, they were not much safer: the monasteries could do little for them, though they did what they could; in the streets they were insulted, mocked, spat upon, and sometimes beaten. And in the very churches, and during the celebration of services, they were liable, as we have seen, to the attacks of a fanatic crowd, who would sometimes break in upon them, and outrage the most sacred ceremonies. Among all the indignant and pious crowd of worshippers none was more indignant or more devout than Peter. He paid a visit to Simeon, the aged patriarch, and wept with him over the misfortunes of the Christians. “When,” said Simeon, “the cup of our sufferings is full, God will send the Christians of the West to the help of the Holy City.” Peter pressed him to write urgent letters to the sovereign powers of Europe: he himself promised to exhort the people to arm for the recovery of Jerusalem and to testify to the statements of Simeon.