EXPANSION OF CHRISTENDOM 313 foreign parts. Pope Urban himself was a native of Cham- pagne and he proclaimed the crusade in Auvergne, another region of France. In the coast cities of Italy, too, were a
- commercial enterprise and a growing sea power which did
i much to make the crusades possible. Indeed, the fleets of , Genoa, Pisa, and Amain had already made attacks of their
- own upon the Saracens of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and
J North Africa. But while such political and economic forces and worldly motives probably would of themselves have resulted in some sort of secular expeditions directed toward Religious I the East, there would have been no crusades J a t r h a e cter i without the leadership of the pope and the in- crusades I fluence of the Church, without the offer of indulgences and 1 other spiritual benefits to those participating, and without j the medieval susceptibility to religious emotion and excite- ment, and without the spirit of self-sacrifice to Christ. "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come ! after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and , follow me." Such was the true watchword of the crusader. It is a fact that many bad men went on the crusades, — beggars, vagabonds, outlaws, criminals, — but some even of these were actuated in this case by a good motive. It is true that many who took the crusading vow in a moment of contrition and devotion afterwards sullied their cause by their actions along the route. But the fact remains that for thousands the crusade was primarily a religious act, and that multitudes laid down their lives for the cause in the arid mountains of Asia Minor or among the hot sands of Syria, victims to famine, plague, and thirst, as well as to the swords of the Seljuks, but, in their own opinion and in that of the Church which sent them forth, "more than conquerors." After the council at Clermont Urban visited many other places in France, preaching the crusade, and Participants many other clergy did the same. Chief among in the First them was Peter the Hermit, who stirred espe- cially the common people, women and children as well
