In 1215 the Lateran Council issued the grand order for the crusading expedition. The Pope and cardinals taxed themselves a tenth of their income, and all ecclesiastics a twentieth. So great was the excitement for war that two astounding phenomena were observed: luminous crosses appeared in the heavens, and the Troubadours sang only of battle, no longer of love. Innocent III. proposed to head the crusade in person, but when his example had wrought its full influence discreetly retired from the leadership. Shortly after he died, and Honorius III. came into the pontificate. In 1217 the mighty armament was in motion. Andrew II., King of Hungary, was designated chief. Germany, under its representative dukes of Bavaria and Austria, followed in his train. The host was augmented by those from Italy and France and the islands of the Mediterranean. According to the Arabian historian, it was the largest force ever at one time pitted against them in Palestine. The army landed at Acre. The new soldiers signalled their arrival by an impressive exhibition of their pilgrim zeal. They formed an immense procession. At their head was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who bore aloft a piece of wood which had been surreptitiously cut from the True Cross at the time it was captured by Saladin at Hattîn. With utmost pomp they passed over the land from the sea to the Jordan, bathed in the waters of the sacred river, and lingered to pray amid the ruins on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias. They gathered many relics, and did not hesitate to take as their pious plunder many of the people of the land, whom they brought with them as prisoners to Acre. No enemy molested them. Malek-Ahdel had advised that the invaders be left to their own dissensions, which, judging from previous observation, were sure to follow as soon as they should attempt to divide the spoil they might take. The martial spirit of the Christians did not resent this idleness, and stagnation of energy bred moral malaria. Camp vices thrived to such an extent that the leaders were forced to drive out the soldiers in search of manly adventures. Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration, lifted high its head, crowned with Moslem forts in place of the Church of St. Helena and of the two monasteries which had formerly commemorated the tabernacles of Moses and Elias. The crusaders were ordered to capture the holy mountain. That all doubt of Heaven’s favor in the enterprise might be removed, the patriarch read the gospel for the day, first Sunday in Advent, and interpreted the words, “Go ye into the village over against you,” to mean the castle on Tabor.