The conditions of the people in most parts of Europe was probably more miserable about this date, that is to say about 1100, than ever before or since. Besides the misery caused by the perpetual fighting, there was disease, in the form of a plague, which killed large numbers; and a very bad season for farming had brought great scarcity of food. Therefore when the {134} call went forth for volunteers to help the Christians of the East and to regain the Holy Places from the infidel, very many were ready to respond to the summons. The Crusade was preached first by a religious zealot called Peter the Hermit, and attracted the poor people who were so wretched in Europe that any change must have seemed likely to be for the better health of their bodies, quite apart from the saving of their souls. This call of the Hermit's seems to have been the summons of a man full of zeal, but of little wisdom. Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Empire, whence the prayer for help had come, was named as the place in which the Crusaders were to collect for the attack on Palestine. Thither Peter the Hermit led his followers; but very few survived even to reach that city. On the way across Hungary wild tribes set upon them and destroyed a great number. So that poor effort came to nothing, as it was certain that it must from the way in which it was undertaken. But in the meantime a more orderly movement had been started, with a great Churchman, acting as the Pope's legate, at its head. So it had the Pope's blessing, and many of the great feudal lords were its leaders. There were lords of Italy, of France, of Germany, and we may note especially that there were lords of Normandy. [Sidenote: War for the Cross] The Northmen had not stopped, in their sea-borne incursions, at England and the northern coasts of France. They had established themselves in parts of Spain, they had come through the Straits of Gibraltar, they had ousted, or had greatly helped in ousting, the Saracens who had taken possession of Sicily and of the south of Italy. They had set themselves up as rulers of that Italian south, with Naples as their capital. Thus enterprising, and ever further pushing, were these people from the north. {135} So these, too, took a part, and a leading part, in the great war for the Cross. Crusade is from the French _croissade_, which is from _croix_, a cross. You may have seen figures on tombs in churches, of knights in armour with one leg crossed over the other. This distinction of the crossed legs is only given to the figures of knights who had taken part in one or other of the Crusades. [Illustration: A CRUSADER.]