of the Arabic "zarra") and "assellare" (to empty one's bowels). He was capable of clever word-play and advanced rhetorical devices, but he was prone to repetition of a number of words and phrases. His writing also shows phrasing and spelling which is unusual or unknown in purely classical Latin but not uncommon in medieval Latin, such as: confusion between reflexive and possessive pronouns; confusion over the use of the accusative and ablative cases, especially after the preposition in; collapsed diphthongs (i.e. the Latin diphthongs ae and oe are spelled simply e); the dative "mihi" ("to me") is spelled "michi"; a single "s" is often doubled, for example in the adjectival place-name ending which he often spells "-enssis"; this spelling is also used to represent the Arabic "sh", a sound which Latin lacks, for example in the name Shawar which he spells "Ssauar". Literary themes and biases Despite his quotations from Christian authors and from the Bible, William did not place much emphasis on the intervention of God in human affairs, resulting in a somewhat "secular" history. Nevertheless, he included much information that is clearly legendary, especially when referring to the First Crusade, which even in his own day was already considered an age of great Christian heroes. Expanding on the accounts of Albert of Aix, Peter the Hermit is given prominence in the preaching of the First Crusade, to the point that it was he, not Pope Urban II, who originally conceived the crusade. Godfrey of Bouillon, the first ruler of crusader Jerusalem, was also depicted as the leader of the crusade from the beginning, and William attributed to him legendary strength and virtue. This reflected the almost mythological status that Godfrey and the other first crusaders held for the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the late twelfth century. William gave a more nuanced picture of the kings of his own day. He claimed to have been commissioned to write by King Amalric himself, but William did not allow himself to praise the king excessively; for example, Amalric did not respect the rights of the church, and although he was a good military commander, he could not stop the increasing threat from the neighbouring Muslim states. On a personal level, William admired the king's education and his interest in history and law, but also noted that Amalric had "breasts like those of a woman hanging down to his waist" and was