means was used to excite an epidemical frenzy, the remission of penance, the dispensation from those practices of self-denial which superstition imposed or suspended at pleasure, the absolution of all sins, and the assurance of eternal felicity.  None doubted that such as persisted in the war received immediately the reward of martyrdom.  False miracles and fanatical prophecies, which were never so frequent, wrought up the enthusiasm to a still higher pitch. [Mosheim states, p. 231, that Peter the Hermit carried about with him a letter from heaven, calling on all true Christians to deliver their brethren from the infidel yoke.] And these devotional feelings, which are usually thwarted and balanced by other passions, fell in with every motive that could influence the men of that time, with curiosity, restlessness, the love of licence, thirst for war, emulation, ambition.  Of the princes who assumed the cross, some, probably from the beginning, speculated upon forming independent establishments in the East.  In later periods, the temporal benefits of undertaking a crusade undoubtedly blended themselves with less selfish considerations.  Men resorted to Palestine, as in modern times they have done to the colonies, in order to redeem their time, or repair their fortune.  Thus Gui de Lusignan, after flying from France for murder, was ultimately raised to the throne of Jerusalem.  To the more vulgar class were held out inducements which, though absorbed in the more overruling fanaticism of the first crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when it began rather to flag.  During the time that a crusader bore the cross, he was free from suit for his debts, and the interest of them was entirely abolished; he was exempted, in some instances, at least, from taxes, and placed under the protection of the Church, so that he could not be impleaded in any civil court, except on criminal charges, or disputes relating to land” ("Europe during the Middle Ages,” Hallam, pp. 29, 30).  Thus fanaticism and earthly pleasures and benefits all pushed men in the same direction, and Europe flung itself upon Palestine.  Men, women, and children, poured eastwards in that first crusade, and this mixed vanguard of the coming army of warriors was led by Peter the Hermit and Gaultier Sans-Avoir.  This vanguard was “a motley assemblage of monks, prostitutes, artists, labourers, lazy tradesmen, merchants, boys, girls, slaves, malefactors, and profligate debauchees;” “it was principally composed of the lowest dregs of the multitude, who were animated solely by the prospect of spoil and plunder, and hoped to make their fortunes by this holy campaign” (p. 232).  “This first division, in their march through Hungary and Thrace, committed the most flagitious crimes, which so incensed the inhabitants of the countries through which they passed, particularly those of Hungary and Turcomania, that they rose up in arms and massacred the greatest part of them” (Ibid).  “Father Maimbourg, notwithstanding his immoderate zeal for the holy war,