One man took it upon himself to rouse the population to take up arms for the Lord. Peter the Hermit, a charismatic poor preacher from Amiens in northern France, went around the land preaching the crusade, and gathering followers attracted by his message and his personal charisma. Unsympathetic church sources ridiculed Peter and these followers, who gave him gifts and were so awed by him that they snatched hairs from his mule as holy relics! A picture emerges of Peter as an eleventh-century TV-evangelist, complete with gullible audience. However, nowhere do we read of Urban or anyone else in the church hierarchy openly condemning Peter, who claimed to have a mandate from the Christian Patriarch (archbishop) of Jerusalem; an unlikely story, but one which some historians warn us not to dismiss.
What sort of man was this Peter? He strikes us as a bizarre figure, but men like him were not unusual at that time. Many men, often from upper-class or clerical backgrounds, gave up their positions in society to head for the hills or forests to live lives as poor hermits. They were rather like 1960s hippies, shunning materialism to live simple lives (only without the drugs). Northern France was the Haight-Ashbury of the time, with many hermits wandering the land, preaching a message of religious repentance and humble living, and attracting large numbers of followers. They were not revolutionaries or heretics, but many conservatives in the church were concerned about their large followings, many of whom came from the poorer sections of society. Peter was typical of this sort of holy man, with the difference that by preaching the crusade he had hit on real winner, attracting a huge following.
