Norman duke; and a banner was sent to William from the holy see, which the pope himself had consecrated and blessed for the invasion of this island. The clergy throughout the continent were now assiduous and energetic in preaching up William's enterprize as undertaken in the cause of God. Besides these spiritual arms (the effect of which in* the eleventh century must not be measured by the philosophy or the indifferentism of the nineteenth) the Norman Duke applied all the energies of his mind and body, all the resources of his duchy, and all the influence he possessed among vassals or allies, to the collection of "the most remarkable and formidable armament which the western nations had witnessed."[1] All the adventurous spirits of Christendom flocked to the holy banner, under which Duke William, the most renowned knight and sagest general of the age, promised to lead them to glory and wealth in the fair domains of England. His army was filled with the chivalry of continental Europe, all eager to save their souls by fighting at the pope's bidding, eager to signalize their valour in so great an enterprise, and eager also for the pay and the plunder which William liberally promised. But the Normans themselves were the pith and the
- ↑ Sir James Mackintosh's "History of England," vol. i. p. 97.
