Course 3, Chapter 35

Christianity preserved and propagated. — Conversion of the Hungarians. - Truce of God. — Foundation of the Chartreux. — Eleventh Century continued.

1. How did God console the church?

During the eleventh century God consoled the church by the conversion of the Hungarians, a barbarous and very cruel people, who had ravaged Germany, Italy, and many other countries.

2. How was their conversion effected?

One of their kings received baptism and induced his subjects to follow his example. He educated in the Christian religion his son Stephen, who became the apostle of Hungary, and was a great saint.

3. What other consolation did God give the church?

Another consolation- given by God to the church Vrts the establishment of God's truce of the truce of God, by which every kind of combat was prohibited, from the evening of Wednesday till the morning of Monday of each week. This cessation from strife was the more necessary, as the Christians were called <m to unite in the crusades against the Saracens.

312 CATECHISM OF PERSEVERANCE.

4. What were the crusades?

The crusades were the wars undertaken by the Christians to deliver the Holy Land from the yoke of the Saracens, who had possessed themselves of the greatest part of Asia and Africa. Jerusalem had fallen into their power; they had exercised the most frightful cruelties in that city, and were menacing the whole country.*

5. Who was the first apostle of the crusades?

The first apostle of the crusades was a holy hermit named Peter, of the diocess of Amiens, whom the sovereign pontiff engaged to traverse Europe, in order to induce the kings and lords of the country to inarch against the Saracens.

6. What name was taken by those who engaged in these expeditions?

Those who engaged in these expeditions wore as their distinct mark a cross of red stuff on the shoulder; for this reason they were called crossed, and the wars called crusades. The crossed or crusaders set out and took Jerusalem, and elected Godfrey of Bouillon king of the holy city. There were six principal crusades.

7. What were the advantages of the crusades?

The principal advantages of the crusades were: I st, to relieve the Christians who had become slaves to the infidels; 2d, to prevent the Saracens from getting possession of Europe and introducing there what they had introduced every where else, slavery, conniption and barbarism; 3d, to develop the arts and sciences.

8. What religious order was established at this time?

The religious order established at this time was that of the Chartreux or Carthusians. Whilst the crusaders were marching to combat, holy solitaries started for the desert, there to implore the aid of God, expiate the scandals of the world, and secure victory for their brethren.

9. Who was the founder of the Chartreux or Carthusians V

The founder of the Carthusians was St. Bruno, chancellor of the church of Rheims, who retired to a frightful desert, called Chartreuse in the diocess of Grenoble, where he and his companions led the life of angels. St. Bruno died in 1101.