After the death of Gregory, Victor III., although he pursued the policy of his predecessor, and had at the same time to contend against the emperor of Germany and the party of the anti-pope Guibert, did not neglect the opportunity of making war against the Mussulmans. The Saracens, inhabiting Africa,[36] disturbed the navigation of the Mediterranean, and threatened the coast of Italy. Victor invited the Christians to take arms, and promised them the remission of all their sins if they went to fight against the infidels. The inhabitants of Pisa, Genoa, and several other cities, urged by their zeal for religion, and their desire to defend their commerce, equipped fleets, levied troops, and made a descent upon the coasts of Africa, where, if we are to believe the chronicles of the time, they cut in pieces an army of one hundred thousand Saracens. That we may not doubt, says Baronius, that God interested himself in the cause of the Christians, on the very day on which the Italians triumphed over the enemies of Christ, the news of the victory was carried miraculously beyond the seas. After having given up to the flames two cities, Al-Mahadia and Sibila,[37] built within the territories of ancient Carthage, and forced a king of Mauritania to pay a tribute to the Holy See, the Genoese and the Pisans returned to Italy, where the spoils of the conquered were employed in ornamenting the churches. The pope Victor, however, died without realizing his promise of attacking the infidels in Asia. The glory of delivering Jerusalem belonged to a simple pilgrim, possessed of no other power than the influence of his character and his genius. Some assign an obscure origin to Peter the Hermit; others say he was descended from a noble family of Picardy; but all agree that he had an ignoble and vulgar exterior. Born with a restless, active spirit, he sought, in all conditions of life, for an object which he could meet with in none. The study of letters, bearing arms, celibacy, marriage, the ecclesiastical state, offered nothing to him that could fill his heart or satisfy his ardent mind. Disgusted with the world and mankind, he retired amongst the most austere cenobites. Fasting, prayer, meditation, the silence of solitude, exalted his imagination. In his visions he kept up an habitual commerce with heaven, and believed himself the instrument of its designs, and the depositary of its will. He possessed the fervour of an apostle, with the courage of a martyr. His zeal gave way to no obstacle, and all that he desired seemed easy of attainment. When he spoke, the passions with which he was agitated animated his gestures and his words, and communicated themselves to his auditors.[38] Such was the extraordinary man who gave the signal to the Crusaders, and who, without fortune and without name, by the ascendancy of his tears and prayers alone, succeeded in moving the West to precipitate itself in a mass upon Asia.