thechildren’scrusade

In the year 1212 the "Crusade" was preached in France by a peasant boy named Stephen from a village near Vendome. In Germany, a boy named Nicholas from Cologne started a similar movement which was summarized the fpllowing year by a chronicler in these terms:

In this year occurred an outstanding thing and one much to be marveled at, for it is unheard of throughout the ages. About the time of Easter and Pentecost, without anyone having preached or called for it and prompted by I know not what spirit, many thousands of boys, ranging in age from six years to full maturity, left the plows or carts which they were driving, the flocks which they were pasturing, and anything else which they were doing. This they did despite the wishes of their parents, relatives, and friends who sought to make them draw back. Suddenly one ran after another to take the cross. Thus, by groups of twenty, or fifty, or a hundred, they put up banners and began to journey to Jerusalem. They were asked by many people on whose advice or at whose urging they had set out upon this path. They were asked especially since only a few years ago many kings, a great many dukes, and innumerable people in powerful companies had gone there and had returned with the business unfinished. The present groups, morever, were still of tender years and were neither strong enough nor powerful enough to do anything. Everyone, therefore, accounted them foolish and imprudent for trying to do this. They briefly replied that they were equal to the Divine will in this matter and that, whatever God might wish to do with them, they would accept it willingly and with humble spirit. They thus made some little progress on their journey. Some were turned back at Metz, others at Piacenza, and others even at Rome. Still others got to Marseilles, but whether they crossed to the Holy Land or what their end was is uncertain. One thing is sure: that of the many thousands who rose up, only very few returned. (1)

Children were mugged, beaten and stolen… By repute they numbered twenty thousand. Some leapt and danced like storks prepared to migrate. Thus wrapped in mighty delusions they walked from Cologne to Basle, to Geneva, traversed the Alps near Mount Cenis, by which time half had been lost, murdered, starved, frozen, drowned in raging mountain streams, devoured by famished wolves.

Those that survive the crossing of the Alps descended on Italy as a swarm of half starved and naked beggars.

(1) Source: Chronica Regiae Coloniensis Continuatio prima, s.a.1213, MGH SS XXIV 17-18, translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 213, The "Children's Crusade", 1212 Internet Medieval Source Book, 2007 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1212pueri.html

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