PETER THE HERMIT A NEGLECTED CELEBRITY
“Whose Enthusiastic Eloquence”
Peter was born in France, somewhere near Amiens, in the early part of the 11th century. Born of peasant stock, of his early life there is no record, but it is probable that he was given to the Monastery in his early years, a custom in those times, when an additional mouth proved too much for the slender resources of a family. His early monastic life would consist of devotions, learning and tilling the fields or tending the flocks, in return for which he would be fed and clothed. The time came when he was called upon to leave the Monastery and travel the countryside, preaching the Gospel to the people in return for food and accommodation.
A description of him at this period states he was a man of short stature with a long lean face, horribly like the donkey which he always rode, and which was revered almost as much as himself.
He was known at first as ‘Little Peter’, but the hermit cape that he habitually wore earned him the surname of ‘Peter the Hermit’. He ate neither meat nor bread, only fish, and drank wine. His clothes were filthyThere was a strange authority about him, and he was thought to be a visionary by the ignorant people of the villages through which he travelled. Whatever he said seemed like something half divine. The burden of his preaching was that war and strife were ungodly and that to reach the gates of Heaven man had to live at peace with man. This was balm to the ears of the peasants, whose lives were constantly in jeopardy by Barbarian invasions and raids of the Norsemen.
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