CHAPTER TWO
‘Now, therefore, brothers, take the triumphal sign of the Cross’
IN LATE 1199 and early 1200 the papacy redoubled its efforts to raise support for the Fourth Crusade. News of the planned expedition rippled across the Catholic West and passed the lips of traders, pilgrims, diplomats and soldiers. Preachers tirelessly worked the courts, market places and cathedrals of France, Germany, the Low Countries, England and Italy. Regardless of language, politics and status, the call to the crusade permeated everywhere: an insistent, relentless reminder to everyone of their Christian duty to regain the Holy Land.
One particularly eminent preacher was Fulk of Neuilly.1 He had risen from a simple parish priest to become a familiar figure in the schools of Paris and to the public at large. He was described as stern-voiced and rigorous in his rebukes to sinners, especially adulterous women and usurers. He was responsible for many miracles and healings, too. ‘In every place he was received with the greatest reverence as an angel of the Lord,’ wrote the contemporary Cistercian chronicler, Ralph of Coggeshall. Fulk was, in one way, however, a worldly individual. Not for him the grim asceticism of some religious men. He was known to eat very well and never refused food, an enthusiasm that provoked surprise amongst those who preferred their holy men to fast and suffer in their cause.2
Pope Innocent had heard of Fulk’s skills as an orator and asked him to preach the new crusade.3 The cleric went to a meeting at the abbey of Citeaux to persuade the Cistercian monks to help him, but they were unwilling to assist, in spite of their long record of involvement in crusade preaching. Fulk was outraged and marched over to the gates urging a crowd assembled for the occasion to make the journey to Jerusalem. Such was his reputation that people flocked to join the campaign. ‘From all points they hasten in large numbers: rich and poor, nobles and the base alike, the old along with the young, an innumerable multitude of both sexes. And they eagerly receive the sign of the Cross from him,’ reported Ralph of Coggeshall.4
Fulk called upon several co-preachers from amongst his contacts in Paris, but these men proved largely ineffectual. It seems they were too fixated upon ideas of spiritual purity and moral reform (which were particularly important in contemporary Church thinking) to make an effective link to the call for a new crusade.5
In the spring of 1200 one region yet to be visited by an official preacher was the city of Basel and the Upper Rhineland, an area already rich in crusading history. Finally, an announcement was made: on 3 May, the feast-day of the Discovery of the True Cross, Abbot Martin of Pairis, a Cistercian monastery in Alsace, was to deliver a sermon in St Mary’s cathedral in Basel.6 At last—an opportunity for the faithful to take the sign of the cross and to carry Christ’s emblem into holy war. Historians usually rely on the contents of chronicles, papal bulls, contemporary letters and charters to piece together the motivation of crusaders. In the case of the Fourth Crusade, however, the narrative of Gunther, a monk from Pairis, contains the text of a crusade sermon that provides a vivid insight into the workings of a crusade appeal.7
Gunther wrote his Historia Constantinopolitana before the end of 1205 and based much of his work on the account of the expedition given to him by his abbot. Martin was later an enthusiastic participant in the sack of Constantinople and was to bring back a rich haul of relics to the abbey. Gunther wrote his work to justify this holy theft and he explained it in terms of God’s benevolent direction of mankind. It is a complex piece of writing, artfully constructed to display its themes to their best advantage.8 The crusade sermon itself is prefaced by the words: ‘He [Martin] is reported to have spoken in these or similar words.’ Gunther is in effect admitting, therefore, that his text is not a verbatim replica of the speech, but is heavily based on the abbot’s original with (probably) a little shaping from the author. In spite of this caveat, this is one of the earliest and most complete contemporary records of a crusade sermon and its general tenor reflects the papacy’s appeal to the motives, hopes and beliefs of a crusader.
The city of Basel dates back to Roman times and the name comes from the Greek word basileus, meaning emperor, and was adopted in honour of Emperor Valentinian I (364—75). It stands on the Rhine, the great arterial waterway running through Germany and central Europe. The cathedral of St Mary’s is positioned on a hill about 100 feet above the river and provided Martin with a large auditorium for his speech: it is more than 160 feet long and the nave is almost 45 feet wide.9 A fire in 1185 had badly damaged the church, and the slow pace of reconstruction meant that it is unlikely that the nave was properly roofed by 1200. To some extent, therefore, the western side of the church was a building site and may well have been partially open to the elements. By the time of Martin’s speech, however, the series of solid, but stately, arches that extend down the body of the church were probably in place. At its apex each arch was slightly pointed, in what we now call the early Gothic style, and this represented the most modern architectural thinking of the age. Today we can see little other than the pale pink-white sandstone from which the cathedral is largely constructed. This gives the building a rather austere aspect, but in Martin’s time the completed section of the church would have been covered in brightly coloured paintings and decorations, depicting biblical scenes and events from saints’ lives. Complex and intricate sculptures adorned the pillars and tombs of the cathedral and some of these still survive: the same fallen Christians, Old Testament heroes and fierce, mythical animals stare down at today’s tourists and worshippers as scowled and grimaced at Martin and his audience 800 years ago.
In the ambulatory of the crypt there survives an image of Lütold of Aarburg, the bishop of Basel who took part in the Fourth Crusade. Lütold’s head and feet have been uncovered from beneath later plasterwork and building modifications, although his body is destroyed. Remarkably this constitutes the only contemporary, or near-contemporary picture of a participant in the expedition, although it was as a distinguished bishop, rather than as a crusader, that he was memorialised. The north transept of St Mary’s contains one particularly vivid series of panels designed to show the sacrifice and suffering of St Vincent, an early Christian martyr. The panels depict his trial, his torture by beating, by fire, by incarceration and by drowning, and then his burial: a lesson in the sacrifice of a true Christian. For Martin’s potential crusade recruits, the ideas of suffering and death would have provided stark reminders of their possible fate, although the reassuring images of angels would have been a sign of heavenly reward to the faithful.
Medieval churches were often the focus of urban life. Today they are frequently quiet, ordered and austere places, but to envisage them in the Middle Ages we must imagine something quite different: places of noise, chaos and colour. Food-sellers, money-changers and other tradesmen milled around outside the building, hawking their wares and their skills to the curious, the needy and the unwary. Performers looked for a chance to draw in an audience for their songs, or to hear tales of heroism and the exotic. The sounds and smells of cooking, the cries of merchants and the shouts and cheers of people gathered around games of dice all formed part of the ambience. The crowds outside the cathedral buzzed with passing news as they swapped tales and related the latest gossip and intrigues. Such gatherings were by far the best source of news and information, and stories of a scandal or a disaster spread like wildfire. We should also imagine a real mix of languages: in the heart of Europe on such a pivotal communication route as the Rhine, French, German, Occitan (the language of southern France) and Latin would be common; and perhaps Danish, Spanish, English or Russian might be heard from the more adventurous travellers. The turmoil around the cathedral would spill inside, with pilgrims and visitors mixing with guides and local clerics. The sick, the crippled and the destitute would be there, begging for alms and support, and trying to scratch a living from the charity of others. Some churches had sloped floors so that the filth and rubbish produced by this mass of humanity could be washed out onto the street at the end of every day. At Basel the focus of this tumult was, of course, the launch of the crusade and the prospect brought great crowds to the cathedral.
For Abbot Martin this would be the biggest meeting of all on his preaching tour. We know little of his previous career, but this was probably the largest audience he had ever addressed; it must have been a daunting prospect. He bore the responsibility for accomplishing God’s work and for this reason—and with as stern a taskmaster as Pope Innocent III behind him—the pressure to succeed was tremendous. In planning his sermon Martin must have weighed up many different, and sometimes conflicting, considerations. The abbot had to ensure that his appeal was pitched at just the right level; his audience was a public gathering, not an assembly of educated churchmen or a small group of local lords whom he knew well from the day-to-day business of his monastery. There had to be clear messages running through his speech: he had to stress the urgent need for the crusade and the inestimable rewards for those taking the cross. Too much complex theology or a lack of clarity might take the sting from his words. Martin had to provoke a range of emotions: anger, sorrow, the desire for vengeance—feelings that would be born out of a wish to save the Holy Land from the infidel. There was also a need for a closer, more personal focus to the appeal: he had to prick an individual’s desire to atone for his sins, to avoid the torments of hell and to save his soul through a penitential journey (in other words, the crusade). He could light upon the more secular values of family honour, crusading traditions and a desire for worldly gain. In essence, of course, if someone took the cross they were making an enormous commitment and probably one of the most significant decisions of their lives. To travel almost 2,200 miles from Basel to the Holy Land, to risk illness and injury, to fight a fierce and successful enemy—not to mention bearing the huge expense of equipment, transport and food—was a profoundly serious undertaking. Martin was also urging people to part from their families, to leave wives and children without their protector and to hope they remained safe in the men’s absence.
Against these negative factors, Martin could set a number of hugely attractive incentives. His prime card was to play upon the essential religiosity of the time: the deep-rooted devotion that permeated Christian Europe in this period and which had been the dominant motive for crusaders since the start of the movement in 1095. Furthermore, because there had been several crusades by 1200, a tradition of crusading had grown up in many families and areas, and this was something else for the abbot to exploit. Such traditions created a sense of expectation and honour that each generation would play its part in the fight for the Holy Land. Martin could also hold out the prospect of material advantage. To some churchmen the idea of profiting from a religious war seemed incongruous, but the papacy had recognised the reality of the situation and reconciled itself to the practice of crusading. At the very least, booty was required to cover the costs of the campaign and there was also a need to pay the wages of knights, squires and other soldiers. There was sound canon law (a mixture of biblical precedent and the decisions of previous popes) to support the payment of adequate wages in Christian warfare. Excess was to be frowned upon, however—if an army took too much booty it would commit the sin of greed, thereby incurring God’s disfavour and leading the expedition to fail.10
As Abbot Martin pondered the exact words to use, he most probably consulted, or remembered, examples of earlier crusade preaching. In the international hierarchy of Cistercian abbeys, the house of Pairis was connected to the house of Morimond—the intellectual centre of the order—and Martin may have turned there for information. Its library held histories of the First Crusade, as well as letters and texts written by other Cistercians such as Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153). Bernard, who was later canonised, had been one of the most powerful crusade preachers of the twelfth century and was known as ‘the mellifluous doctor’ on account of his honeyed words. Quite wisely, Martin seems to have borrowed some of these ideas and images. Bernard himself preached for the Second Crusade at Basel on 6 December 1146.11
What little information we have about Abbot Martin’s personality suggests that he was well equipped to deliver the sermon. Although our evidence comes solely from Gunther, his fellow-Cistercian, and could be open to charges of bias and exaggeration, it appears that the abbot was an engaging and gregarious man. He was described as being cheerful, humble (always an appropriate attribute for a good churchman) and popular. He was praised for his maturity, his gentleness amongst his monks, yet he also carried genuine authority with lay people of all ranks and was, according to Gunther, ‘regarded by both clerics and laity as lovable and easy to deal with’. As the abbot started his preaching tour, some monks were concerned that his constitution—probably weakened by years of ascetic practices such as fasting and vigils—would not withstand the rigours of a recruitment campaign. Decades earlier, St Bernard had performed such debilitating devotional routines that his digestive system was all but destroyed and he was sick so frequently that he needed a special hole in the ground next to his pew in the church to vomit into. Martin was a rather more robust individual, however, and he seems to have been galvanised by his task; with ‘energetic self-confidence’ he set about his work.12
News of the sermon was trailed well in advance to attract the maximum audience. While many of Martin’s listeners came from the city itself, others would have journeyed specially to hear him. In late April and early May, Basel must have seemed to possess a magnetic attraction. The roads became markedly busier as potential crusaders, traders and those who were simply curious to listen were pulled towards the cathedral. People would have travelled together in carts, bartered, begged and bought food; they must have felt a shared bond of brotherhood and adventure as they moved into the city. The visitors had much to discuss. They exchanged news of the situation in the Holy Land and of the legendary ferocity of their Muslim enemies; they debated the choice of route to the East; they discussed possible arrangements for lands and families and the problem of raising money. Some may have been on pilgrimage or earlier crusades to the East, and their anecdotes and experiences were doubtless relayed and generously embellished. The exploits of crusading heroes would also have been talked of. Since the time of the First Crusade, the events of that divinely blessed expedition had been told and retold, with its leaders’ deeds and reputations glossed and amplified. The troubadour songs of the chivalric courts, epic stories (the chansons de geste) and the monastic chroniclers of the age all recalled the deeds of their predecessors.
Finally, on 3 May 1200, the great day arrived and large numbers were said to be ‘hungrily’ waiting for the preacher to begin. The altar in Basel cathedral stands on a raised area above the crypt, placing Martin a few feet above his audience and giving him a good platform from which to address the church. When the abbot stood up to deliver his sermon the seething crowd in front of him fell silent. Martin felt huge anticipation, ’his whole being afire with celestial devotion’, and as the moment of his oration approached, he offered up a silent prayer. Fortified by divine inspiration, the abbot prepared to speak. To a modern reader many of the words and images he used appear highly exaggerated; equally the powerful reaction of the audience strikes us as unnatural. Today, displays of open emotion by a public figure tend to arouse special comment. In medieval times, crying, close physical contact and prostrating oneself on the ground in an act of devotion were not so unusual. They might be noted by observers, but were not regarded as extraordinary. We should recall the scale of the commitment that the abbot was seeking. To persuade people that the huge sacrifices of a crusader were worthwhile would require the performance of a lifetime.
At the start of his sermon Martin employed a truly striking device. He suggested that the words were not his own, but that Christ was speaking through him. ‘Heed my word to you, my lords and brothers; heed my word to you! Indeed, not my word, but Christ’s. Christ himself is the author of this sermon; I am his fragile instrument. Today Christ addresses you in his words through my mouth. It is he who grieves before you over his wounds: Immediately, therefore, his sermon was imbued with a divine authority and a spiritual presence. From the outset the audience was pressed to respond as the Lord wished.
Very quickly the abbot came to the heart of his message: ‘Christ has been expelled from his holy place—his seat of power. He has been exiled from that city which he consecrated to himself with his own blood. Oh, the pain!’ Images of the loss of Jerusalem and the spilling of blood (Christ’s blood, shed on behalf of mankind) were expertly coupled with Martin’s exclamation of hurt. With the claim that, through him, Christ addressed the congregation, the abbot had created a sense that Christ himself—there in Basel cathedral—cried out in agony. In other words, Martin had brought Christ’s suffering and loss directly to his listeners.13
The abbot developed the idea of the injury suffered by Christ through the Christians’ expulsion from Jerusalem. He also outlined the life of Christ, the resurrection and His work with the apostles. He emphasised that Christ Himself had instituted the sacrament of the holy body and blood (the Eucharist), something that was familiar to all present through regular religious observance. After this succinct overview, inexorably tying Christ’s presence on earth and His gifts to mankind to the loss of the physical Jerusalem, Martin brought his audience starkly back to the present: ‘this land is now dominated by the barbarism of a heathen people. Oh the misery, the sorrow, the utter calamity! The Holy Land ... has been given over to the hands of the impious. Its churches have been destroyed, its shrine [the Holy Sepulchre] polluted, its royal throne and dignity transferred to the gentiles: The image of the heathen polluting and defiling the Holy Land dated back to the time of the First Crusade and was a well-used message in crusading sermons. Clearly this would provoke a sense of outrage in the audience: an unclean and ungodly race was occupying Christ’s lands. Connecting the damage to the churches of the Holy Land—buildings that some in the audience may have visited on pilgrimage themselves—he again returned the focus to the present.
Alongside the destruction of churches, the abbot mentioned the loss of the True Cross: ‘That most sacred and venerable Cross of wood, which was drenched with the blood of Christ, is locked and hidden away by persons to whom the word of the Cross is foolishness, so that no Christian might know what was done with it or where to look for it.’
The True Cross was probably the most important single relic of the age and was believed to be part of the cross upon which Christ was crucified. Because His body was assumed into heaven, there were no bones left as relics, and items closely associated with Christ’s presence on earth were, therefore, highly prized. The True Cross, as the object upon which Christ had suffered for all mankind, was obviously a relic imbued with enormous spiritual significance. It had been found in Jerusalem in the fourth century by Helena, the mother of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and the feast-day to commemorate that event was 3 May.14 Martin had, therefore, cleverly tied Christ’s suffering, this important historical event and the feast-day to his own crusade preaching. The relic itself had been split into two pieces: one part was sent to Constantinople, the other one remained in Jerusalem. The piece at Jerusalem was removed by the Persians, but was rediscovered by Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem in the seventh century. Following the Arab invasions later that century it was divided again and a large section was found by the crusaders soon after the capture of the holy city in 1099. The complicated history of the relic, or indeed its authenticity, is in many ways irrelevant, because the crusaders believed absolutely in its veracity.
The wood was mounted in a large metal cross, decorated with gold and silver; it was kept in a special chapel in the church of the Holy Sepulchre and was carried into battle by the Franks who regarded it as a protective talisman. In July 1187, however, at the Battle of Hattin, Saladin had captured the cross and it had not been seen since. Its recovery was a central preoccupation for the Church and there had been unsuccessful attempts to negotiate its return. Martin incited his audience to help regain this relic so intimately connected with Christ’s presence on earth. The fact that he had chosen to deliver his oration on the feast-day of the True Cross added even greater potency to his appeal and shows again how carefully calculated his entire approach to the sermon was.15
The abbot then shifted his focus and commented on the military situation in the Levant: ‘virtually all of our people who used to inhabit that frontier have been eliminated’. The abbot noted that the survivors, centred upon the city of Acre (today in the far north of Israel), were subject to repeated enemy attacks and for this reason as well, ‘such is Christ’s plight, which forces him today to appeal to you through my mouth’. In reality the circumstances in the Levant were not quite as Martin described. Although the Frankish lands were massively truncated after Saladin’s conquests of 1187, the work of the Third Crusade meant that they had a reasonably firm hold on the coastal strip. Furthermore, because the Muslim world had disintegrated into a bitter struggle between Saladin’s heirs, it was not in a position to mount a serious assault on the Christians. In the context of a crusade sermon, however, strict accuracy was not essential. It is unlikely that either Martin or his audience knew the full facts and it was fundamentally true that the Franks were weak and did not hold Jerusalem. In any case, exaggeration and hyperbole were staples of crusade preaching from the very start. In 1095 Urban II’s descriptions of Christians in the Holy Land being tied to posts and used as archery practice by the infidel, or else being eviscerated, were absolutely groundless. But, true or false, they served a purpose and succeeded in whipping up his listeners into a frenzy of religious fervour and a wish to revenge themselves on the Muslims. People had to believe that they were risking their lives for good reason and the perilous position of their fellow-Christians in the Holy Land formed a substantial part of that cause.16
After this powerful exposition of the need to perform God’s work, the abbot appealed directly to his audience: ‘And so now, true warriors, hasten to help Christ. Enlist in His Christian army. Rush to join the happy ranks. Today I commit you to the cause of Christ, so that you might labour to restore Him to His patrimony, from which He has been so unmercifully expelled.’ This brought home the urgency of the situation. It also touched upon a theme familiar to the knighthood of western Europe, namely the notion of the rightful inheritance of property. There were endless disputes over land succession, and the idea of losing land that was properly due to an individual would strike a strong chord; if the dispossessed individual was Christ Himself, then the need to restore the proper order would be even greater.
Abbot Martin then acknowledged an awareness of the dangers that faced crusaders and the worries that confronted them, and he tried to fortify his audience by remembering the deeds of their predecessors. ‘Lest you be frightened by the fact that presently the heathens’ savagery against our people has greatly increased in its fury, I want you to remember the accomplishments of ... that famous expedition led by Duke Godfrey ... the first Frankish ruler of Jerusalem].’
This history lesson was designed to appeal to the knights’ sense of honour and a wish to emulate the deeds of their forefathers, as well as to fulfil their Christian duty. Martin also offered encouragement by pointing out that the First Crusaders succeeded without having any base in the Levant. In 1200, on the other hand, the Christians held Acre and Antioch and many other castles, and these could provide a springboard for the recovery of Jerusalem.
The final section of the sermon focused on the rewards for a crusader. After putting the case for a moral commitment to the cause, the abbot backed this up with a simple and direct appeal to two of medieval man’s greatest interests: the afterlife and money. The crusade was God’s work, and Martin promised ‘absolutely’ that ‘whoever takes the sign of the Cross and makes sincere confession will be totally absolved of every sin and when he leaves this present life, no matter where, when, or by what happenstance, he will receive life eternal’. It is difficult to overstate the medieval preoccupation with making good the consequences of sin and avoiding the eternal torments of hell. One historian has described it as ‘the most guilt-ridden age in history‘, where sins of violence, lust, greed and envy were never far from the thoughts and deeds of its people. One glance at the graphic and terrifying sculptures surviving over the doorways of churches such as Autun, Conques or Arles demonstrate unmistakably the horrors of hell (see plate section). Fearsome devils, with terrible teeth and claws, draw hapless sinners towards a variety of grim and eternal torments; promiscuous women have serpents attached to their breasts; those guilty of minting false coins have molten metal poured down their throats; a sinful knight is slowly roasted on a spit, while another is simply pushed into the jaws of a huge monster. Yet a crusader could—if he confessed his sins—be absolved from all his misdeeds. It was a bargain: performing the work of God on a crusade was such an arduous act of penance that the participant would receive a reward of appropriate generosity. This deal lay at the heart of the offer that had proven so attractive to generations of crusaders, dating back to the launch of the First Crusade in 1095. Incidentally, the statements making plain that the time of death made no difference to the crusader receiving his heavenly reward were designed to address a specific and important concern. The audience would be aware that many could die on the way to the Holy Land, through shipwreck, by enemy action or, most likely of all, from illness. Martin was reassuring crusaders that once they had taken their vow and confessed their sins, their place in heaven was certain. In other words, if his intentions were proper, a crusader would not be denied his heavenly rewards through failing to complete his journey to the Holy Land.17
Alongside the offer of this spiritual jackpot, Martin buttressed his case by holding out the hope of secular rewards as well. Some reports of Urban II’s sermon at the Council of Clermont in 1095 mention the pope describing a ‘land of milk and honey’ to which the crusaders were travelling. Few preachers from the Second and Third Crusades were so explicit in their use of secular gains as a lure to take the cross. Martin, however, was not at all coy. He said: ‘Now I shall not even mention that the land to which you are headed is by far richer and more fertile than this land, and it is easily possible that many from your ranks will acquire a greater prosperity even in material goods there than they will remember enjoying back here.’ The cynic might argue that Gunther was preparing his readers for events later in his account when Martin—on behalf of the Church, of course—had gathered great riches. The writer may have been suggesting that the crusaders had been encouraged towards such acts by the preaching of the expedition, which here, we must remember, was said to have Christ’s endorsement. Equally, given the lack of surviving sermons from the time, such a message might have been no more than routine. In fact, because so many Frankish knights had been killed or captured at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, if the Fourth Crusade did succeed in retaking the Holy Land, then there would have been quite genuine possibilities to secure lands and wealth.
Martin rounded off this section of his appeal with a reminder: ‘Now, brothers, look at how great a guarantee comes with this pilgrimage. Here, in the matter of the kingdom of Heaven, there is an unconditional pledge; in the matter of temporal prosperity, a better than average hope: Who could resist such an attractive proposition?
As he moved towards the end of his oration, Martin pulled off one final flourish: ‘I, myself, vow to join in both the journey and the labour and, insofar as it is God’s will, I hope to share in all your successes and trials.’ Many crusade preachers did not actually take part in the expedition, but here Martin fervently assured his audience that he was prepared to suffer and to face the same risks as they. Once again, therefore, he added a new ingredient to the power of his words and the pressure of his arguments.
After this rousing exhortation, in the last moments of the sermon he demanded that his audience should act. ‘Now, therefore, brothers, take the triumphal sign of the Cross in a spirit of joy, so that, by faithfully serving the cause of Him who was crucified, you will earn sumptuous and eternal pay for brief and trivial work:
By this time Martin was emotionally and physically exhausted. He had to strain his voice in so large a space and he had put every ounce of concentration and energy into his message. His own tears and cries peppered the performance, such were the depths of feeling he brought forth. His audience, too, was deeply affected by his words. In the course of his sermon, ‘You could see tears ... from everyone ... you could hear groans, and sobs, and sighs, and all manner of similar signs that gave an indication of personal remorse.’ The careful construction of the speech and the astutely chosen messages were designed for maximum impact upon the listener. Coupled with Martin’s compelling delivery, they ensured that all those present had shared in Christ’s suffering, had appreciated the danger of the Christians in the East, had been reminded of the heroes of the First Crusade, and were offered substantial spiritual and material rewards. ‘When, with compressed lips, the wise man fell silent, the mob roared on every side, stung by sweet pain; they hurry to assume cruciform tokens and divine service, to enlist in the ranks of the Leader, who leads us to the stars by way of the cross:
In spite of his fatigue, Martin must have felt elated. Crowds surged forward to commit themselves to God’s work. While many had probably decided to take the cross beforehand, his words would have turned these thoughts into reality and almost certainly persuaded others to join the crusade. Once the tumult had died down, Martin could turn to practical matters: he set a date by which all were to have put their private affairs in good order. They were to reassemble at the cathedral and then ‘take up with him the path of holy pilgrimage’.18