Mere love of change and adventure also led many to take the staff. If in our advanced civilization men cannot entirely divest themselves of the nomadic habit, but tramp and tourist are everywhere, we need not be surprised at the numbers of those who indulged this passion in days when home life was exceedingly monotonous and its entertainment as meagre. But the chief incentive to pilgrimage was doubtless the supposed merit of treading the very footprints of our Lord. Not only was forgiveness of sins secured by kneeling on the site of Calvary, but to die _en route_ was to fall in the open gateway of heaven, one’s travel-soiled shirt becoming a shroud which would honor the hands of angels convoying the redeemed soul to the blissful abodes. Great criminals thus penanced their crimes. Frotmonde, the murderer, his brow marked with ashes and his clothes cut after the fashion of a winding-sheet, tramped the streets of Jerusalem, the desert of Arabia, and homeward along the North African coast, only to be commanded by Pope Benedict III. to repeat his penance on even a larger scale, after which he was received as a saint. Foulques of Anjou, who had brought his brother to death in a dungeon, found that three such journeys were necessary to wear away the guilt-mark from his conscience. Robert of Normandy, the father of William the Conqueror, as penance for crime walked barefoot the entire distance, accompanied by many knights and barons. When Cencius assaulted Pope Hildebrand, the pontiff uttered these words: “Thy injuries against myself I freely pardon. Thy sins against God, against His mother, His apostles, and His whole church, must be expiated. Go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.” We are thus prepared to appreciate the incentive to the crusades which men of all classes found in the speech of Pope Urban at Clermont, in inaugurating the movement: “Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalem for the remission of sins, and depart assured of the imperishable glory which awaits you in the kingdom of heaven.” Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty of Turks, once had a dream in which he saw all the leaves of the world-shading tree shaped like cimeters and turning their points towards Constantinople. This he interpreted into a prophecy and command for the capture of that city. Similarly we may conceive the various conditions and sentiments of Europe in the eleventh century, which have been described in our previous chapters, as directing the way to Jerusalem. Subsequent events, however, prove that, unlike Othman’s leaves, the Christian incentives to the crusades were not directed by the breath of Heaven. THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES. CHAPTER IX. THE SUMMONS—PETER THE HERMIT—POPE URBAN—POPULAR EXCITEMENT.