Jerusalem, the cradle of Christianity, was with the capacity of the Moslems since the seventh century: the tomb of Jesus-Christ, the valley of Josaphat, the Garden of the Olive-trees and the Martyrdom, all the holy places were profaned; the Christians who went there in pilgrimage underwent any kind of ill treatments there: they were stripped their clothing, one souffletait them, one trailed them by the hair; those which try to be defended were massacred or plunged in dungeons.

Christendom could not support a long time any more of such humiliations, and all the people of the Occident were faded of revenge.

When Pierre the Hermit had told with sobs the sufferings of the Holy Land Christians, the pope Urbain II rose on his throne and harangua innumerable crowd: "Men of France, says it, time had extinguished between you any hatred, and had just linked your forces against the enemies of God.

If you feel retained by the love of your children, your parents and your wives, think of the eternal life and with the imperishable glory which awaits you "A these words an immense cry burst" God wants it ", then all the multitude prosterna against ground so that the pope gave him the discharge.

Enthusiasm was so large that more than 60,000 pilgrims, men, women and children, left at once with Pierre the Hermit, without taking time to organize itself.

In France, they easily found to be nourished, but when they were inserted in Germany and Hungary, they suffered cruelly from the hunger: weakest died exhausted on the ways; the others, forced to plunder to live, had to deliver to the inhabitants terrible combat: they lost ten thousand of them under the walls of Nissa, and when they arrived to minor Asia, opposite the Turks, they succumbed under the number; all the men were exterminated, even the old men and the children.

The women were taken along to far in slavery.

The army of the Knights, if already reduced by the diseases and the combat, endured under the walls of Jerusalem the greatest sufferings: the sun burned the ground; the torrents were desiccated, and the poisoned water of the cisterns.

But the Christians suffered without murmuring, because they were supported by the faith.

Pushed back in several attacks, they forced finally the rampart el July 14, 1099, and penetrated in the city per hour of Passion.

The battle continued street in street, of house in house; with the entry of the large mosque, the floods of blood rose to the breast piece of the horses.

As soon as the Christians were Masters of the city, they washed their bloody hands, and went to the holy places to adore God.

Godefroy de Bouillon, elected official king of Jerusalem, wanted to carry only the title of "defender and baron of the Holy Sepulchre", not to carry a gold crown where Jesus-Christ, the king of the kings, had carried a crown of spines.

The kingdom of Jerusalem was organized on the model of the countries of Occident; the king had large feudatories: Bohémond, prince d' Antioche, Tancrède, prince de Galilée, Baudouin, prince d' Édesse; there were a county of Tripoli, a marquisat of Tyr, a seigniory of Tibériade, etc; finally the institutions of the new State were formulated in Bases of Jerusalem, true code of the feudalism.