to no little alarm since hostile designs would be suspected, so crowded a pilgrimage in the eleventh century would not by any means be a unique, even if it were an exceptional event. Whole armies of pious persons were traversing Europe from shrine to shrine, whilst the enthusiasism for the pilgrimage to Jerusalem was greatly on the increase and was, before many years had passed to culminate in the Crusades. Even by the end of the tenth century hospices had been built throughout the whole valley of the Danube, the favoured route to the Holy Land, where pilgrims could replenish their provisions. In 1026, Richard, Abbot of Saint-Vannes, led seven hundred pilgrims into Palestine, all expenses being discharged by Richard II, Duke of Normandy. In 1065, over twelve thousand Germans, who had crossed Europe, under the command of Gunther, Bishop of Bamberg, while on their way through Palestine had to seek shelter in a ruined fortress where they defended themselves against troops of marauding Bedouins.[50] Gunther actually died in this year at Odenberg (Sopron) in Hungary while engaged on a Crusade. In 1073, Pope S. Gregory VII was seriously contemplating the leading of a force of fifty thousand men to the East, military pilgrims who would repulse the Turks, rescue the Holy Sepulchre, and re-establish Christian unity. Therefore in itself the appearance of this company of pilgrims outside the walls of Narni, if remarkable, would be a very possible and understandable circumstance.
In his Antidote against Atheism, III, 12, Dr. Henry More relates some remarkable instances of multitudinous phantoms. He says: “Our English Chronicles also tell us of Apparitions, armed men, foot and horse, fighting upon the ground in the North part of England, and in Ireland, for many evenings together, seen by many hundreds of men at once, and that the grass was trodden down in the places where they were seen to fight their Battles: which agreeth with Nicolea Langbernhard her Relation of the cloven-footed Dancers, that left the print of their hoofs in the ring they trod down for a long time after.
“But this skirmishing upon the Earth, puts me in mind of the last part of this argument, and bids me look up into the Air. Where, omitting all other Prodigies, I shall only take notice of what is most notorious, and of which there can by
