10 THE HISTOKT OE THE ORDER OE [book i.

Driven from his hovel, despised and ill-treated byhis landlord, and exposed to numberless distresses,between slavery, anarchy, and famine, what was leftfor the cultivator of the soil, but to indulge in theexpectation of some great change at hand—readyat the crisis to take any direction his clergy pre-scribed. Classes which had any intimacy withthose handsome domineering Normans, coidd notbut have imbibed something of their gay indepen-dent spirit, and enthusiasm both in religion andlove, and their uncontrollable desire of roving—they being the greatest pilgrims of their time; oneof whom was the Count de Verdun, of the illustriousfamily that was soon to produce Godfrey de Bouil-lon. To consort with them was to get restless,particularly in private hardships—and what familythen but had its private hardships? Uncertaintybrooding everywhere, and gradually falling intopermanent forlornness and the loss of any attachmentto their homes; as eager to shift them as the NomadeArabs, who carry their pots and pans about withthem, and children and tents, and whatever theypossess, and a furious contempt for stone walls.Thus all the French lay on their oars.

Doubtful as may be the origin of those enter-prising parties that got together in Scandinavia,yet coming thence to Germany, ancient or modern