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Peter’s personal calling, Christ said, but rather “our mission,” and He enjoined Peter to hurry home and lift the hearts of the faithful “for cleansing the holy places of Jerusalem.” Peter then went to Rome and informed the pope of the situation in the Holy Land and of Christ’s instructions for the liberation of His tomb. The pope had no choice but to obey these heaven-sent commands. 16

    Peter probably never met with Pope Urban II, and he may never have gone to the Holy Land. But in 1095 and 1096, he did begin traveling around France, Normandy, and Germany, telling of the horrors being perpetrated in Jerusalem and describing the desperate need there for military aid from the West. Not just a preacher of war, he adapted the persona of an ascetic hermit, drawing on many of the burgeoning religious ideals of his day. He sometimes rode a mule, always traveled barefoot, and avoided eating bread and meat, though he did, strangely, drink wine and eat fish, “thus seeking in the midst of delicacy a reputation for abstinence,” according to one twelfth-century critic.
    His mission attracted numerous followers. Some were impressed by his unusual approach to the eremitical life, by his forceful calls to repentance, and by the liberality with which he redeemed prostitutes. These once fallen women must have formed a substantial part of Peter’s retinue, no doubt causing scandal for many. But others would have recognized something more fundamentally pious in his demeanor. His ragged clothing, his connection to Jerusalem, the redeemed sinners in his entourage, perhaps even his preference for fish—all of these signs together would have shown how Peter followed the example of Christ, who had also walked barefoot, avoided handling money, and taken as companions one prostitute and at least two fishermen.
    Peter’s message made ecclesiastical authorities nervous, but they could not deny its effectiveness. He was “greatly esteemed by those who know worldly things,” said one writer, “and he was raised above even bishops and abbots in the practice of religion, because he ate no bread or meat.” “I don’t remember anyone ever being so honored,” observed another one, who saw Peter preach in person. With wondrous authority he could bring warring parties together and force them to make peace. His followers, or perhaps simply his fans, would pathetically pluck hairs from the mule that he rode, preserving them as if they were holy relics. 17
    While preaching forgiveness and poverty, Peter also told stories about Jerusalem, reaffirming what veterans of the 1064 German pilgrimage and their friends would have long known: Jerusalem was in the hands of pagans who every day were preventing Christians from worshipping at the tomb of their Lord. If the Christians there did not get help, and soon,
their religion and Jerusalem itself might not long survive. Already the pagans had transformed the “Temple of the Lord” into a “Mahomerie,” or, as we might say, a mosque (he was specifically referring to the Dome of the Rock). It would clearly be a good and righteous service to God if those warring knights, whose conflicts had at last achieved some sort of resolution through Peter’s oratory and his very demeanor, would now turn their weapons against a real enemy, against the unbelievers who every day were defiling the sacred sanctuaries of Jerusalem.
    But Peter added just a little bit more incendiary material to his message of peace and war. Based on what Albert of Aachen said, he must have carried with him a sealed letter from the patriarch of Jerusalem. By itself that document would have proved a powerful talisman. But at some point in his itinerary, he turned it into something else altogether—a charter that had fallen from heaven. On it was a mandate that “instructed all Christendom from all parts of the world to take up arms and journey to Jerusalem