Eleanor of Aquitaine Read Free Page B

important, however, William assured her that at the earliest opportunity she would get back Toulouse. He would see to it. Not that he had any intention of invading her native land; on the contrary, he greatly preferred occupations more pleasurable than war, although he always fought fearlessly when conflict could not be avoided. But momentous events beginning to take shape would enable him to make good his promise at a much earlier date than he or Philippa ever dreamed.
     
    Since Mohammed’s death in the seventh century, the banner of Islam had flown over Jerusalem. That the biblical holy places should fall into Moslem hands failed to disturb western Europe, for the Arabs, sharing Christian veneration for these places, welcomed and protected pilgrims. But in the eleventh century the barbarous Seljuk Turks, desert men mounted on camels and swift small horses, swept over the rock-strewn valleys of Jerusalem and the sepulcher of Christ; pilgrims lucky enough to return told hair-raising tales of their treatment at the hands of Islam’s newest and fiercest champions, who viewed Christians as likely candidates for capture and enslavement. All of Christendom stood mute and horrified, and yet the idea of undertaking an expedition to drive out the Moslems from the Holy Land occurred to no one. Twenty-five years passed before the Christian nations decided that the scandal had become intolerable.
    On a hazy day in November 1095, in a field outside the town of Clermont in the Auvergne, a tall white-robed figure slowly mounted a platform, its gold canopy billowing slightly in the misty air. Below him on the dry brown grass clustered cardinals, bishops, and black-clad monks, and behind them the cloaked laymen, pilgrims who had walked hundreds of miles over mountain and meadow, barons and knights on their richly caparisoned bays and Arabian steeds, here and there a noble dame accompanied by her maid. The vaporous breaths of men and animals rose and mingled with the odor of sour human sweat. Among the restless throng waiting to hear the words of Pope Urban II at this gathering, thereafter to be known as the Council of Clermont, was Duke William IX. He watched as the pope stood for a moment between two shimmering crosses and then moved close to the edge of the platform, his slow, level words bringing an instant hush to the crowd.
    “O race of Franks, race beyond the mountains! We wish you to know what a serious matter has led us to your country, for it is the imminent peril threatening you and all the faithful that has brought us thither!
    “From the confines of Jerusalem and from the city of Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth and has been brought repeatedly to our ears.... A race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race wholly alienated from God, has violently invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. They have led away a part of the captives into their own country, and a part they have killed by cruel tortures.
    “They have either destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of their own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their own uncleanness.”
    Muffled cries and whispers went up from the assembly as the slow, deep voice of Urban continued to describe how the invaders befouled the altars with filth from their bodies, how they circumcised Christians and poured the blood into the baptismal fonts, how they stabled their horses in the churches. The Turks were so degenerate that they ate meat on Fridays and coupled together like loathesome beasts. He called upon the girdled knights, arrogant with pride, to come to the defense of Christ. Fiercely chastizing them for their petty feuds, their habit of murdering and devouring one another in civil wars, he exhorted them to abandon their dissensions and make war against the infidel. “Enter upon the road of the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from the wicked race and