Read Pilgrims of Promise Online
Authors: C. D. Baker
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Historical Fiction, #German
Pilgrims of Promise
Other books in the Journey of Souls series
Crusade of Tears
Quest of Hope
Copyright ©2010 C.D. Baker
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1456406639
ISBN-13: 9781456406639
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62111-045-3
To those glad hearts redeemed
to their adoption
Editor’s note: Please find at the back of this book powerful discussion questions for group or personal study (
Readers’ Guide
), as well as a helpful
glossary
for clarification of terminology and historical information.
Contents
Chapter Two Suffer the Children
Chapter Three The Search for Eden’s Gate
Chapter Four The Bay of Respite
Chapter Seven A Son Remembered, A Sister Found
Chapter Ten Love in the Brünig Pass
Chapter Twelve Friends Found, Friends Lost
Chapter Thirteen Trouble in Olten
Chapter Fifteen A Farewell, A Monkey, And A Caravan
Chapter Sixteen Forest Haunts and a Merry Inn
Chapter Eighteen Trouble in Weyer
Chapter Nineteen A Jew, A Witch, and A Monk
Chapter Twenty A Collaboration of Love
Chapter Twenty-one Tension in Villmar
Chapter Twenty-two Wise As Serpents
Chapter Twenty-three The Ordeal
Chapter Twenty-four Wayfarers Once More
Chapter Twenty-five Changes by the Kiss
Chapter Twenty-six The Bees of Renwick
Chapter Twenty-seven The Angels Sing
T
his book is the third volume in a series that has taken ten years to write. It is, therefore, a fortunate repetition for me to extend thanks to my wife, Susan, for her remarkable contributions of patience and grace. She has been a delightful research companion and a supportive critic. Without her I would have had no compass for this journey.
I must also applaud my circle of draft critics for their generous support of this project, particularly Dr. Father Rock Schuler, Mr. Edward Englert, Rev. Matthew Colflesh, Mrs. Karen Buck, Mr. David Baker III, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles and Elizabeth Baker.
To my agent, Lee Hough, another hearty thanks. He has been a faithful advocate and friend. Craig Bubeck and his editorial team at RiverOak cannot go unmentioned. They and their marketing associates deserve recognition for their outstanding professional oversight. My German instructors, Joseph and Elizabeth Christ, have provided enthusiastic support and helpful guidance.
Again I extend my deep appreciation to the Roths, Wickers, Klums, and Lauxes of Weyer, Germany. They endured many selfless hours by foot, car, train, and plane teaching me much about their homeland. Their contribution to my work is incalculable.
Many other kind persons throughout Germany, Switzerland, and Italy helped my research in innumerable ways. In Germany I was ably assisted by Ms. Saskia Langkau of Münden, Mr. Eberhard Wigro of St. Boniface’s Church in Hameln, and particularly by the Rev. Peter Meinert of St. Gallus Church in Altenesch. To these and to all the unnamed curators, passersby, hosts, and helpful guides who provided assistance, I offer my sincerest thanks.
Finally, allow me to express my gratitude to God for His goodness to this struggling writer. His hand has been clearly present from the outset, and I pray my work may bring Him at least a portion of the honor He alone is due.
T
he councils of Christendom’s kings fell silent and the halls of her mighty knights were stilled. By the solemn prayers of Hallowmas in the year 1212, news of the failed Children’s Crusade had been whispered along the winding byways of Europe and filled countless hearts with grief. From the pope’s lavish palace to the damp recesses of far-flung parish churches, a collective groan was lifted to heaven.
The records tell us that a frustrated Pope Innocent III soon scolded Europe’s knights for hiding within their castles while leaving the children of Christendom to serve the holy cause in their stead. It was a complaint that more likely caused harm to his crusading vision than it did to inspire his princes. His successor, Gregory IX, elected in 1227, would offer a more fitting tribute to the young crusaders. He erected the Chapel of New Innocents in memory of those children who drowned by shipwreck. Its ruins can still be found on the sunny island of San Pietro, which lies in the crystal-blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of Sardinia.
Other facts appear in the chronicles of at least four credible witnesses. The annals of Brother Alberic of Trois Fontaines, Brother Godfrey of St. Pantaleon, Bishop Sicard of Cremona, and one M. Paris are supported by oral tradition and the later writings of Roger Bacon. Accordingly, we have learned that many adults chose to blame the surviving children for the failure of the crusade rather than face their own complicity in the matter. They accused them as having failed in their faith and, consequently, subjected the helpless lambs who ventured home to the most vile acts of human imagination.
Despite the incredulous imputation of blame by many adults, villages and towns across Germany and France were also filled with anguished parents who rued the day that their beloved sons and daughters had taken the Cross for such a hopeless and ill-reasoned cause. An angry mob gathered in the city of Cologne, where Nicholas—the German crusade’s self-proclaimed boy prophet—had previously excited the imagination of many. Venting their fury, enraged men dragged Nicholas’s father from his house and hanged him. Nicholas himself was never found. He quickly became a character of legend, some believing that he was sold into slavery in North Africa only to escape and eventually take arms against Islam in the Fifth Crusade. His twelve-year-old French counterpart, Stephan, vanished from history’s record altogether.
Despite the disquieting loss of legions of children to misplaced devotion and the discontent of the masses yet yoked to bondage, the stubborn grip of an aging order held Christendom fast. The lords attached themselves greedily to the determined cause of popes who sanctioned several more crusades. These failed efforts would be pitiful shadows of the mighty First Crusade. Far from defending brothers in Christ from the cruel expansionist swords of Islam, they degenerated into little more than pillaging adventures that resulted only in furthering the cause of hatred.
By the close of the thirteenth century, interest in Rome’s old crusading vision had finally waned beyond revival, and the pleas of exasperated popes went unheeded. Many had become weary of bloodshed, corruption, and tyranny. The embarrassment of the Children’s Crusade had ignited a simmering dissatisfaction that, fueled by Europe’s exhaustion, ultimately contributed to the end of the crusading era. A new vision of the future was arising, and its messengers would be quite different from those of the past. Devout monks, restive poets, courageous scholars, and defiant peasants—motivated by the insufferable errors of their world—would put feet to change.
Against the abuses of Roman authority—no doubt
because
of them—a contrasting way of faith began to emerge. Christian men and women such as St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi began to proclaim the Christ of the Gospels. Denying themselves, Francis and Clare carried words of love and compassion out of the monasteries and directly to the weary people of Italy. Their words and those of others would spread and gradually awaken the hearts of Christendom’s long-suffering folk. Their legacy would warm the soul of Christian Europe in powerful ways.
While such matters stirred, the political power of the Roman Church weakened, and the slow rise of nation-states began. However, it would not be enough for power to simply slide from pontiff to king. The age that had gone before would simply not allow it. The people had borne the weight of oppression for so long that it had made them muscular, and truth had invigorated their spirit. The natural consequence of truth, of course, is the rise of liberty. Political institutions formed that recognized the divine rights of both kings
and
persons. It was
Magna Carta—
guided by the enlightened hand of Archbishop Stephan Langton and escorted to the future by the “Flower of Chivalry,” Sir William Marshall—that laid a framework for the liberties of the English-speaking world.
The world of this story was at the beginning of all these things, when an old age was sputtering in its death rattle and the faint heartbeat of another life had begun. The disquieting events of the Children’s Crusade became joined to centuries of hardship as more kindling for the fires of liberation. Like dough broken and pounded by the baker’s hand, the lives of many had been kneaded and pressed so that another era might finally rise fresh and fragrant. Those who had endured the troubles of the past had suffered along their way, but their tears of sorrow had swelled the river of promise where currents of truth would lead others to new life.
So, now come, join our brave companions one more time. They have struggled to overcome great things, but their journey has not yet ended. Like the world around them, theirs is a season of change, a destiny of new beginnings, a time to lay hold of that which they have become.
Nova Vita
