In the common conception of the Middle ages,
we have a great number of stories and legends that border between myths and historical events. Fiction and facts get intermixed in later
recountings, creating contradicting sources that can be hard to distinguish from reality,
and introducing a multitude of misconceptions about our knowledge of the time. One such story is the Children’s Crusade,
a pilgrimage of young devotees that ended in tragedy, and that has inspired numerous
works by authors ranging from Voltaire to Agatha Christie. In this video, we will explore what the sources
tell us about this event, its background, and the effects it had on the following crusades. If you want to learn more about the Crusades,
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Crusade is as such: In the spring of the year 1212, a young shepherd named Stephen is watching
his flock in the French countryside. Alone during the night, he is approached by
a man who begs him for food and shelter. After he feeds the wanderer, the man reveals
himself to be Jesus Christ and asks the boy to give a letter to the French King. The boy travels to Saint-Denis, preaching
on his way, and gathers a large crowd of young boys and girls. Once at Saint-Denis he delivers the letter
to the king and implores him to take the cross. Children from France and Germany flock to
the prophet, who declares that they would march to the Holy Land without wetting their
feet and topple the local Muslim Kingdoms by converting the local population to Christianity. The following, numbering in the tens of thousands,
heed the call for a Crusade and travel south towards the Mediterranean Sea, until they
reach the Port of Marseille. Here the prophecy that the sea would split
at their presence does not occur so many return home, while others wait. By this point, the pilgrims are approached
by two merchants, Hugo Ferreus and Guilelmus Porus, who promise them safe passage to Palestine. Once aboard their vessels, however, the travel
ends in tragedy as the transports are either shipwrecked along the coast of Sardinia or
the children are sold into slavery in Tunis, depending on the recounting. So why did this tragedy happen? At the start of the 13th century, Europe was
at the tail end of the High Middle Ages. In the previous two centuries, Western Europe
had experienced a slow and steady economic growth and an increase in population. The causes for these economic advancements
have been attributed to the warmer climate, a decrease in raids caused by invaders, and
most importantly the introduction or rediscovery of technologies, especially in metallurgy,
that resulted in the manufacturing of iron-tipped ploughs and other machinery, the implementation
of new agricultural techniques, and the construction of water mills. The increased yields had the effect of incrementing
the population and changing the management of the terrain. These changes brought with them another development:
the growth of European cities. It is at this time that the great Northern
European cities such as Paris, Mainz, and Cologne, start to become more and more relevant. The booming population, the new technologies,
and the judicial liberties that the cities offered induced an expansion of trade and
production in these centers, introducing and spreading technologies and new ideas. Money returned as the main means of exchange
and a new class of merchants and artisans emerged that would become crucial for the
further development of the European towns. However, as cities grew and some layers of
society got richer, a great number of people were left behind in extreme poverty. While in rural areas, institutions such as
the church or local nobility had alleviated this, the great concentration of poor people
in the cities made wealth inequality even more arduous. One series of events that took place at this
time were the Crusades. Their origins and causes are to this day a
hotly debated topic that split historians and scholars, but some of the reasons that
are most often mentioned are the desire for plunder and new lands, along with the genuine
will to free the Holy Lands from Muslim presence, the desire for adventure, and the indulgence
for one’s sins. The first crusade ended with the conquest
of Jerusalem and Palestine in 1099 and was followed by a century of warfare, battles,
and crusades in the Levant. By the end of the twelfth century, the Crusader
states had lost Jerusalem and were mostly concentrated on the coast. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade took place, which
resulted in the sack of Constantinople and the temporary destruction of the Eastern Roman
Empire perpetrated by the Venetians and Crusaders, putting a dampener on enthusiasm to crusade
in the Levant. So in the year 1212, we find Western Europe
more concentrated on interregional conflict than outward expansion. The Holy Roman Empire was split between the
Welf and Hohenstaufen families vying for the Imperial throne. The Iberian Kingdoms were focused on their
own struggle, while the French were on their path to end the Angevine Empire. Pope Innocent the Third was an enthusiastic
supporter of the Crusades, but at that time he was concentrated on reforming the church
rules and weeding out internal heresies. One such heresy was Catharism, a Christian
movement that had a great following in southern France and that sparked the Albigensian crusade
that took place at that time. It is in this year, in the spring and summer
of 1212, that the so-called Children’s Crusade takes place. It is certain that a great number of pilgrims
moved in Europe that year, as a number of sources cite their presence. Unfortunately, these citations are often short
and do not give much information about the events that took place on their journey. The lack of coherent documentation can be
explained by the popular nature of the expedition, as the actions of the lower classes did not
attract much interest from the chroniclers of that time. One thing that is certain is that the journeying
of people was not made in a single group, but there were two distinct movements taking
place at the same time, one in France and the other in Germany. No source can confirm if they influenced each
other, but it is possible that there was a connection as they both started in similar
ways. We know that in the winter and the spring
of 1211 and 1212, in Northeastern France, the Lowlands, and Western Germany a great
number of preachers feverishly exhorted to crusade against the heresies in Europe, the
most prominent of which were as mentioned the Cathars in Languedoc, so the base for
the religious fervour had been priorly laid. The French movement started in the summer
and was headed by a young boy called Stephen of Cloyes. Similar to the popular recounting, it is said
that he was visited by Jesus and that he had a message for the French King. He started to preach and was joined by more
people until the procession of 30,000 souls reached the abbacy of Saint-Denis, the royal
residence at the time. Here Stephen gave the message to a representative
of king Philip Augustus and recounted his vision. The king, advised by the University of Paris,
told the group to return home so no harm would come upon them in faraway lands. Here the sources end their recounting but
it seems that most of them did return home or joined the Albigensian crusade, while Stephen
returned to his herd and disappears from history. It is, however, believed among historians
that this was not a branch of the actual Children’s Crusade, but instead part of an annual procession
of peasants that had an unusually young and pious speaker, who never himself intended
to go to Palestine, and that later was connected to the Children’s Crusade. The other movement took place in Germany,
where it was initiated in Cologne. Here a child named Nicholas is said to have
had a vision of a flaming cross in the skies and started to preach that they should travel
to the Holy Land and that they would convert the local population without bloodshed. Not much is known about Nicholas, though it
is mentioned that his father, a wicked man, helped him in organizing the procession. The call to arms to liberate the Holy Land
spread to the neighbouring regions, and a group of 20,000 people departed south through
the Rhine valley. Many died traversing the Alps, either of hunger,
frozen or killed by bandits or beasts, while others abandoned the procession and returned
home either at Mainz or Piacenza. The Crusade of now 7,000 people reached the
gates of Genoa. Here Nicholas had prophesied that the sea
would part in two so the pilgrims could reach the Levant, but as this did not happen, they
splintered into groups: some returned home, others stayed in Genoa, invited to remain
as cheap labour was sought after by the growing mercantile republic; another group took to
Marseille whose end is unknown and has been the main hook for legends, such as that they
found passage but were shipwrecked or sold into slavery. The last group, including Nicholas, travelled
to Rome. Here they met Pope Innocent the Third and
were absolved of their oath to take the cross in autumn could return home, though the vast
majority did not. A question that has been often raised is:
who were the participants of this crusade and were they actually children? Historians have looked at the use of the Latin
word “pueri”, which is most often translated as “children” but can also mean “the
powerless”, as in the least privileged members of society. On the other side, another factor that has
to be taken into consideration is that young people and children made up roughly the majority
of the European population, and had in the middle ages a lot more duties and reached
maturity earlier than today. Some historians like Peter Raedts believed
that it was not a crusade of children, but instead of the most marginalized members of
society at that time. But more recent analyses of the sources seem
to confirm that at least a big minority of them were children and young boys and girls,
who were joined by women, elders, poor people, criminals, and other members of the lowest
strata. What surprised the writers of the time was
the great number of young people in the Crusade, unusual for that kind of voyage. We know that some youngsters of richer families
also joined the crusade, getting quite certainly robbed or killed on their way, and a source
mentions that Nicholas’ father was executed in Cologne when so many of the citizen’s
children did not return, so it is certain that a number of young people did travel. To understand how the movements started, we
have to look at the previously mentioned religious fervour that was simmering around the Seine
and Rhine valleys after the preaching for a crusade against heresies, and the great
number of desperate people in extreme poverty that lived in the cities where the pilgrims
started. An important factor that can help us understand
the motivation of the masses is their faith. The Vatican librarian Leonard E. Boyle distinguishes
in the Middle Ages the faith of the learned theologians of the university and that of
the common folk. The latter of these was characterized by the
belief that faith was a gift of God to those who gave themself to him wholeheartedly, so
physical action or contact, such as pilgrimage and relics, was very important for them; death
was of lesser importance if done under the name of God. In fact, it was not the first time the marginalized
members of society went on crusade-like ventures, such as the Poor’s Crusade of 1095 led by
Peter the Hermit, which preceded the First Crusade and ended in disaster in Anatolia. Was the Children’s Crusade actually a crusade? Both contemporaries and modern scholars agree
that it was not. Despite the convictions of those who participated,
the movement had no legal basis as a crusade: the Pope or any other papal authority had
not sanctioned it, the church did not bless the movement, it was not encouraged by indulgences,
and the chroniclers of the time do not talk about the Crusade in a positive light. Still, though, many of the young Germans did
take the cross, the promise to join the effort to free the holy land, and it is said that
Pope Innocent was impressed by the young members. According to the chronicler Alberti Abbatis
Stadensis, the pope remarked: ‘These children put us to shame. They rush to recover the Holy Land while we
sleep.’ Later chroniclers took the misfortunes of
these bands of poor people and embellished them with details, creating a story of paragons
of virtue and Christian zeal, elements of which have been picked up by later literary
works that took inspiration from this story, like many children’s stories. Although the so-called Children’s Crusade
was a complete fiasco, it still had an impact on the crusades that followed. Whether Pope Innocent was actually moved by
the attempt is uncertain, as he is known to have been fond of crusades, but the following
year he did call for a new crusade to retake the Holy Land in a Papal Bull, and four years
later the Fifth Crusade was launched, in 1217. We have more videos on the history of the
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