Whoever heard him preach forsook his worldly possessions and
took the cross, clamouring for Peter himself to lead all Christendom.
"Countless numbers flocked to his banner, towns and castles stood
forsaken and there was hardly one man to seven women. The wives were
made widows during the lifetime of their husbands." Thus Bernard wrote
to the Pope, travelling through Germany, healing the sick by his mere
presence, and preaching to the people in a tongue no one could
understand. But the personality of this physically delicate man, whose
body was only kept alive by his spirit, touched all hearts. The prudent
Emperor, Conrad, resisted for a long time, and would have nothing to do
with such an aimless enterprise. But Bernard's first sermon in the
cathedral at Speyer, on Christmas Day, moved him to tears. Bernard left
the pulpit and pinned the cross on the shoulder of the kneeling emperor.
By this symbolical act the metaphysical spirit of the time, of which the
Church had obtained control for her own purposes, visibly became master
of political common-sense.
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