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He was a military man, then he retired from the world and became a monk, a hermit. At that time, Christendom was obsessed with the idea of the Crusades.
The Pope was the main engine of this movement, which clearly reflected the ascetic mood of an entire era; but according to the legends recorded by Albert of Aachen and William of Tire, it was not the pope who led the crusade, but Peter, who even carried away the pope with his enthusiasm. Small in stature, having a pitiful appearance, he was fraught with great valor.
He was "quick and insightful, and spoke pleasantly and freely." Arriving in Palestine, Peter was deeply saddened, having become acquainted with the plight of Christians. During a conversation with the Jerusalem Patriarch Simon, Peter advised him to turn for help "to the lord-pope and the Roman church, the kings and princes of the West," and he himself expressed his readiness to go to them, beg them for help. Confidence in success arose from the “miserable, poor and deprived of all means pilgrim” due to the help of Christ the Savior himself. He appeared to Peter in a dream, encouraged him and prescribed a crusade. In Rome, Peter appealed to Pope Urban II.
Peter of Amiens preaches to the people the necessity of the First Crusade.
He humbly and joyfully listened to the appeal, blessed Peter for preaching and promised his zealous assistance. Peter went to Vercelli, from there to Clermont, went through all the countries, calling them to fight for the Savior. The people surrounded him in crowds, brought him gifts and glorified his holiness. "Everything that he neither said nor did - revealed divine grace in him." Everyone recognized his authority. No one knew how to settle disagreements and reconcile the most cruel enemies better than him. Many pulled out, as a shrine, the wool from his mule. Peter did not eat bread, eating wine and fish. Having gathered a large army, Peter decided to direct his way through the land of the Hungarians. Then all the lands and all the princes and knights in all France rose up to liberate the Holy Sepulcher. According to this legend, Peter had already done half the work when Pope Urban arrived in Clermont with a call to march (in the year).
The legend, in the version recounted by William of Tire, Abbot Guibert of Nogent, and Anna Comnene, pushed the pope into the background, pushing Peter forward. Meanwhile, contemporaries do not know Peter, do not attribute to him the initiation of the Crusades, do not speak of him as a messenger of God who stirred up the West. In the north of France, Peter was known only as one of the many popular preachers; the British and Italians did not know him at all. To contemporaries, he seemed to be an ordinary fanatic-ascetic, who gathered a militia from peasants, beggars, serfs, and vagrants. The leaders of these hordes were Peter and Gauthier the Beggar. The fate of the first militia was deplorable.
Constant skirmishes, battles in Hungary and Bulgaria, general disorder deprived the leaders of influence on the masses. The Hungarians and Bulgarians destroyed the crusaders. After crossing into Asia, Peter left the militia, which was soon exterminated by the Turks, and joined the army of Gottfried of Bouillon. When the crusaders were besieged in Antioch by the emir Kerboga, there was such a famine that many fled in droves, others descended on ropes from the walls and went into the forests.
Among the "rope fugitives" was Peter, but he did not manage to escape, as he was caught by Tancred of Tarentum and forced to swear that Peter would not run away. The name of Peter is mentioned during negotiations with Kerboga near Antioch. After the capture of Jerusalem, Peter returned to his homeland, arrived in Picardy and founded an Augustinian monastery in Yui, the rector of which he died in the same year.
Literature
- Sybel, "Geschichte des ersten Kreizzuges", where the legends of the crusade are considered.
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Peter of Amiens ("The Hermit")- (Peter the Hermit) (1050 1115), French. monk, the organization of the 1st crusade is attributed to Rom. Charismatic personality, P.A. gathered in 1096 in France and Germany 20 thousand people, but among them there were few experienced warriors. They got to…… The World History
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He listened to the appeal, blessed Peter for preaching and promised his zealous assistance. Peter went to Vercelli, from there to Clermont, went through all the countries, calling them to fight for the Savior. The people surrounded him in crowds, brought him gifts and glorified his holiness. "Everything that he neither said nor did - revealed divine grace in him" [ ] . Everyone recognized his authority. No one knew how to settle disagreements and reconcile the most cruel enemies better than him. Many pulled out, as a shrine, the wool from his mule. Peter did not eat bread, eating wine and fish. Having gathered a large army, Peter decided to direct his way through the land of the Hungarians. Then all the lands and all the princes and knights in all France rose up to liberate the Holy Sepulcher. According to this legend, Peter had already done half the work when Pope Urban arrived in Clermont with a call to march (in 1095)
The legend in the version narrated by William of Tyre, abbot Guibert of Nozhansky and Anna of Komnena pushed the pope into the background, pushing Peter forward. Meanwhile, contemporaries do not know Peter, do not attribute to him the initiation of the Crusades, do not speak of him as a messenger of God who stirred up the West. In the north of France, Peter was known only as one of the many popular preachers; the British and Italians did not know him at all. To contemporaries, he seemed to be an ordinary fanatic-ascetic, who gathered a militia from peasants, beggars, serfs, and vagrants. The leaders of these hordes were Peter and Gauthier the Beggar. The fate of the first militia was deplorable.
Constant skirmishes, Jewish pogroms, battles in Hungary and Bulgaria, general disorder deprived the leaders of influence on the masses. Czechs, Hungarians and Bulgarians destroyed the crusaders. After crossing into Asia, Peter left the militia, which was soon exterminated by the Turks, and joined the army
St. Peter the Hermit, or Peter of Amiens, is today better known to specialists in the history of medieval Europe than to the broad masses of believers. Meanwhile, the name of this undeservedly forgotten saint once thundered throughout the medieval world. It was well known not only to Catholics, but also to enemies. Catholic Church. With the name of St. Peter the Hermit was connected by a single spiritual impulse of Christian Europe, aimed at protecting the Catholic faith and its greatest shrines.
Biography of St. Peter the Hermit is preserved in the exposition of Albert of Aachen and William of Tire. According to legend, St. Peter was born in Amiens around 1050. As a young man, like most young men of that era, he dreamed of a military career. However, military service opened his eyes to the senselessness of extermination by Christians of each other in petty internecine conflicts. He left the service and retired to a deserted place, becoming a hermit monk.
St. Peter the Hermit was small in stature and did not have an attractive appearance, but thanks to his penetrating mind and outstanding gift as a preacher, he soon won the love and respect of the inhabitants of the surrounding villages.
In that era, many Europeans made pilgrimages to the Holy Land. Such a long and dangerous journey could be assigned to any Christian in the form of a penance for committing a grave sin. At the same time, a huge number of wandering ascetic pilgrims voluntarily went to Palestine to bow to the greatest shrines of Christianity. On the way, many died from hunger, disease and attacks by robbers.
In Palestine itself, a new danger lay in wait for the pilgrims - Muslim fanatics who exterminated Western pilgrims as "infidels." After the capture of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks in 1078, attacks on Christian pilgrims on their way to holy places became noticeably more frequent. Among the wanderers who went to the Holy Land to worship the Holy Sepulcher, was St. Peter the Hermit. Fortunately, he himself reached Palestine safely, but was struck by the plight of local Christians and the desolation into which the once flourishing Christian land came under Muslim rule. During the formation of the Islamic state - the caliphate, the attitude of the authorities towards Christians, as a rule, was tolerant (they were only subjected to a special tax), but later the situation changed. During the time of St. Peter the Hermit, Muslim rulers pursued a targeted policy of Islamization of the Christian population, Palestinian Christians also began to be subjected to increasingly strong pressure.
According to legend, during the stay of St. Peter the Hermit in Palestine, the Lord Himself appeared to him in a dream and commanded him to call Western Christians to protect their Eastern brothers. Having met with the Jerusalem Patriarch Simon, St. Peter the Hermit advised him to turn to "Vladyka-Pope and the Roman Church, the kings and princes of the West," and he himself promised to go to them and beg for help.
Arriving in Rome, St. Peter the Hermit turned to Pope Urban II with a request to protect the Palestinian Christians, vividly describing to him their plight. Perhaps this evidence finally convinced Urban II of the need to declare a crusade to liberate the Holy Land, although, undoubtedly, the idea of a campaign has been in the air for a long time.
In November 1095, a council was convened at Clermont to discuss the position of the Eastern Christians. St. Peter the Hermit spoke before the fathers of the Council and told them about what he had seen in Palestine. On November 26, the Pope gathered the people on a wide plain in the vicinity of Clermont and addressed the faithful with an appeal to protect Christian shrines and eastern brothers. Thus the 1st Crusade was proclaimed. All its participants who brought sincere repentance were given remission of sins. The very same participation in the campaign was perceived as penance.
The news of the announcement of the Crusade was received with enthusiasm in the Christian East. An anonymous Byzantine author wrote: “As the time approaches, about which our Lord Jesus Christ daily proclaims to believers in the Gospel, where he says: Whoever wants to follow me, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me, in all regions of Gaul there was great excitement, and everyone, pure in heart and mind, who wanted to follow the Lord and faithfully carry the cross behind him, hastened to take the path to the Holy Sepulcher.
Meanwhile, St. Peter the Hermit, with the blessing of the Pope, went from Clermont to the north of France, preaching reconciliation and unity against the common enemy of the Christian world - the Muslims.
Severe asceticism and an outstanding gift of eloquence attracted St. Peter the great masses of people. Guibert of Nozhansky (1053 - 1124), the author of the Gesta Dei per Francos, who personally knew the saint, writes: number, united around the hermit Peter and obeyed him as a mentor.This man, born, if I am not mistaken, in the city of Amiens, led, as they say, a solitary monastic life in some part of northern France (...), and we saw how he passed cities and villages and preached there surrounded by many people, receiving great gifts, surrounded by the glory of the saint (...) He was generous in distributing what was given to him, he married prostitutes, giving them presents, everywhere establishing peace and harmony with great authority. Everything he said or did revealed divine grace in him (...). He wore a woolen tunic and a cassock over it, both long to the heels, and a cloak over top (...) He ate only bread, a little fish and never drank wine ".
St. Peter the Hermit was not the only preacher who called Christians to the campaign. In other parts of Western Europe, militias gathered under the leadership of the German priest Gottschalk and the landless French knight Walter the Indigent.
In the whirlpool of the Crusade, ideals and aspirations mixed up different people. Among the crusaders there were many who went to the Holy Land not for the purpose of liberating the Holy Sepulcher, but for the sake of personal gain. During the passage of the crusaders' militia through Hungary and Bulgaria, there were many skirmishes with the local Christian population. The detachments of Gottschalk were almost completely destroyed by King Kalman in Hungary, and the crusaders, led by Count Emicho of Leiningen, were exterminated by the Czech prince Bryachislav.
Militia of St. Peter the Hermit left Cologne on April 19, 1096. It passed through the Hungarian lands, observing due discipline, thanks to which it not only was not attacked, but also received assistance with provisions from the king and local residents. However, in Orthodox Bulgaria they were met with a hostile reception. There were no bloody clashes. Only in Sofia, the crusaders were met by the envoys of the Byzantine emperor, who promised to regularly deliver food. This promise was fulfilled - on the parking lots, the militia members found pre-prepared supplies. The Greek population treated them with trust and goodwill and provided the necessary assistance. For two days St. Peter the Hermit stopped in Adrianople, and already on August 1, 1096, the militia reached the capital of the Byzantine Empire - Constantinople. By this time, it numbered about 180 thousand people.
Anna Komnena (1083 - 1148), daughter of Emperor Alexios I, who left us evidence of the first Crusade from the Byzantine point of view, highly appreciated St. Peter the Hermit. She wrote: "Gall, named Peter, nicknamed koukoupetros("Peter in a cassock"), managed to unite the Gauls, who came one after another from different parts of the world with weapons, horses and other military equipment. These people had such ardor and zeal that all the roads were full of them, these Gaulish warriors were accompanied by many unarmed people, there were more of them than grains of sand or stars, and they carried palm trees and crosses on their shoulders: women and children who had left their villages. They seemed to be rivers that flow from all sides."
In Constantinople, St. Peter the Hermit met with the Byzantine emperor, who presented him with a gift and ordered that provisions and money be given to all members of the militia. Emperor Alexei I tried to detain the crusaders in the city until the approach of the knightly detachments, since the militia, despite its large numbers, did not have real military strength: it was poorly armed and consisted of people who had no combat experience. An anonymous Byzantine author reports: “The aforementioned Peter was the first to approach Constantinople on the third day of August Kalends, with him most of the Germans approached. Among them were the Lombards and many others. the arrival of the main army, for you are not enough to fight the Turks."
However, the long stay of the crusaders in the capital had a degrading effect on them. It was extremely difficult for St. Peter the Hermit to restrain the armed crowd of many thousands, constantly tempted by Byzantine luxury, an abundance of all kinds of food and jewelry. The longer the time dragged on, the greater was the temptation, and some began to succumb to it: robberies and skirmishes with the Byzantine guards began to occur. At the same time, many members of the militia demanded that they be sent across the Bosporus as soon as possible, and that they be given the opportunity to fight the Turks. They murmured, saying that they did not make such a journey in order to sit outside the walls of Constantinople. Fearing the final decomposition of the army, St. Peter the Hermit asked the emperor to send the army across the strait, and soon the militia members were taken to the Asian coast. The camp was set up at Helenopolis, in the North-West of Nicaea.
Finally finding themselves on enemy territory, the crusaders, contrary to the advice and warnings of St. Peter the Hermit, began to disperse, attacking the surrounding villages. The first minor successes clouded their eyes, and they ceased to obey their mentor, turning from a Christian militia into an unorganized mob of robbers. Anna Comnena writes that St. Peter the Hermit "denounced those who disobeyed him and followed him only on a whim; he called them thieves and robbers." After repeated unsuccessful attempts to reason with the soldiers, St. Peter the Hermit left the camp and returned to Constantinople.
Some time later, with some of the more intelligent and pious members of the militia, he joined the army of Gottfried of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine. St. Peter the Hermit still enjoyed honor and respect, but here he no longer claimed any leading role. His honesty and unselfishness were implicitly trusted and therefore begged to take on the duties of treasurer.
It soon turned out that the knightly army, like the people's militia, consists not only of genuine soldiers of Christ. During the tedious siege of Antioch, which began in September 1097 and lasted more than a year, internal strife broke out in the camp of the crusaders. Discipline fell, the troops were engaged in robbery. On June 2, 1098, Antioch was taken, but the very next day, the Mosul emir Kerboga approached the city with a 300,000-strong army. The crusaders themselves were under siege. Seeing the senselessness of everything that is happening, St. Peter the Hermit left Antioch, but on the way he was stopped by Tancred of Apulia and returned against his will - they did not want to let him go, using him as a living symbol to raise the fallen morale of the army. It is known that St. Peter the Hermit subsequently participated in negotiations with Emir Kerboga.
After the capture of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, during which many civilians died, St. Peter the Hermit refused to take any further part in this war. It was clear that the greedy European feudal lords were trying to cash in on the noble idea of protecting Christian shrines. The ideals of the Great Crusade were largely discredited. At the end of 1099 St. Peter the Hermit left Palestine and returned to Europe.
He founded a monastery in Guy, according to the rule of St. Augustine. The abbot of this monastery, St. Peter the Hermit was until his death in 1115.
His body, first buried in the cemetery, was transferred in 1242 to the crypt of the church. The saint's sackcloth and tonsure, framed by magnificent curly hair, were untouched by decay. Memorial Day of St. Peter the Hermit - 8 July.
Knighting. Medieval miniature
But the Church did not have its own army; it could only threaten with heavenly punishments. The secular power of sovereigns was too weak, and therefore it was in chivalry that the Cluniacs saw the force that should help the Church organize a Christian society. In knightly customs, in church rituals, in the cult of saints, new features appear. Priests bless knightly weapons. When knighted, the sword of the newly-accepted knight lies on the altar. The newly received person himself spends the night in the temple in fasting and prayerful vigil, performs ablution in a font resembling a baptismal one, and takes an oath at the consecration to defend the holy Church. Some saints undergo a kind of transformation. So, Saint George, a Christian warrior, executed in Rome, according to his life, for refusing to take up arms, becomes the heavenly patron of chivalry. The ideas of a “just war” come to life again, expressed, as already mentioned, by Augustine the Blessed. If war is waged in the name of the Church, at the call of the Church and against the enemies of the Church, then it is not evil.
The papacy actively encouraged the war with the Muslims in Spain. Pope Alexander II in 1063 called on the knights to fight those “who persecute Christians and drive them out of the cities”, declared that this war was just, and absolved those who went to fight the Moors in Spain.
Pope Gregory VII, an unbending fighter for papal supremacy, for the first time uses the expression "Christ's army" (militia Christi) not in relation to the monks (as it was before), but to the knights who serve the Holy See, and he was the first to speak of "wars Peter, that is, wars supported by this Holy See (I recall that St. Peter is considered the first Pope of Rome, and the papal possessions in Central Italy with a center in Rome were called the “patrimony of St. Peter”), in Spain, in Sicily against the local Arabs , and simply against the enemies of the papacy. One way or another, the war ceased to be only evil, and this, of course, influenced the attitude towards the just proclaimed crusade.
First crusade (1096-1099)
"Campaign of the poor" and popular Christianity
In March 1096, peasants, townspeople, petty knights (however, there were several representatives of the nobility), beggars, thieves, etc. went on a “pilgrimage across the sea”. Apparently, therefore, historians of the 18th century. they did not put this “pilgrimage” in the overall account of the crusades - it was too painful for these “soldiers of God” did not fit into the good picture of the war for the faith - and called it the “crusade of the poor”. But today, most researchers still include it in the description of the First Crusade.
As already mentioned, several years of poor harvests in northern France and western Germany undermined the well-being of many. For others, the hike was the only way out. The pope not only absolved the sins of all the crusaders in advance, but also suspended the payment of their debts, forbade prosecution until the end of the campaign, and took the remaining property and families of the pilgrims under his protection. Secular courts overturned the sentences of criminals if they accepted the cross.
Peter the Hermit shows the Crusaders the way to Jerusalem. Miniature. France. About 1270
But not only the thirst for enrichment or, at least, the opportunity to escape from poverty or even get rid of the execution attracted these people. Among the crowds armed with scythes, axes, or simply clubs, a considerable part were women, children, and the elderly. They wished, since they could not fight, to gain a martyr's crown. There was a religious upsurge. God's grace and the desire for earthly goods, the desire to escape from the masters and the expectation of a miracle merged into one. People were led by faith. But not the faith of theologians, but the faith ordinary people, which modern historians call "folk Christianity".
One large detachment from Northern France was led by a certain landless knight from Lorraine, the border region between France and Germany, and therefore scholars still argue whether to call him the French Gauthier or the German Walter. However, his nickname - Golyak clearly speaks of his property status. Another leader of this detachment was the monk-preacher Peter of Amiens (at the place of birth), he is also Peter the Hermit. The life and activities of the latter are overgrown with legends, in which it is very difficult to separate fiction from reality.
Petr Hermit
Peter the Hermit appears in the legends as almost the soul and inspirer of the entire crusading movement in general. A brilliant orator and a stern ascetic, he walked barefoot, dressed in rags, did not eat bread or meat, eating fish and vegetables. Peter went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and, if the later chroniclers did not add anything of their own, had a conversation with the Patriarch of the Jerusalem Orthodox Church, Simeon II. The patriarch complained that Byzantium did not protect Christians in the East well, and asked, through Peter, for help from the West. According to Peter the Hermit (if only later chroniclers did not put them into his mouth), when he prayed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Christ appeared to him in a vision and ordered him to preach the liberation of the Holy Land. Others added that the hermit from Amiens even showed a letter received directly from God, in which the Almighty demanded to recapture Jerusalem.
There were even more exotic leaders. In front of some detachments, to the horror of the educated representatives of the clergy, there was a goose or a goat. It was believed that the Lord manifests His will through foolish animals and will lead believers to where they need to go. Approaching each city, the pilgrims asked: "Isn't this Jerusalem?" The point is not only that they did not have the slightest idea about the path and the position of the place to which all their thoughts were directed, but also that the Almighty could, in their opinion, shorten their path and immediately deliver them to Jerusalem. The atmosphere of a miracle reigned in these crowds everywhere.
Guillaume of Tyre. The Crusaders embark on the First Crusade. Miniature. 13th century
Looting and pogroms, time and personality
The path of the poor is marked by robberies and Jewish pogroms in all the villages and cities through which they passed. The detachments from Germany were especially distinguished by this. One of them was led by the priest Gottschalk, and another was, perhaps, the most distinguished participant in the campaign of the poor, Count Emicho of Leiningen; the latter was downright addicted to Jewish pogroms.
Guillaume of Tire, who was quite sympathetic to the crusaders, nevertheless had to admit: “The most direct route that was laid by those who first passed through Hungary was soon completely closed because of the impudence of the pilgrims and because of all kinds of abuses that they unfairly done to the locals." According to his own story, the soldiers of Christ, who accompanied Gottschalk, first took food from the local Hungarians, and then, having drunk well, attacked them, killed some, and set fire to the houses.
Without trying, of course, to justify these atrocities, let's try to understand the motives of the crusaders. They were on their way to the Kingdom of God, that is, as if they were already partly in it. And there, after all, according to Scripture, there will be no concepts of "mine" and "yours." Everything is God's there, and therefore the soldiers of God can take everything they need.
As for the murders of Jews, in order to comprehend the roots of hatred towards the Jews (that's right; anger and anger were caused by non-Christians, not foreigners, it was a religious, not a national enmity), one should turn to medieval ideas about time and personality.
