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44. Children's Crusade From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Crusade

The Children's Crusade is the name given to a disastrous Crusade by Christian children to expel Muslims from the Holy Land said to have taken place in 1212...The variants of the long-standing story of the Children's Crusade have similar themes. A boy began preaching in either France or Germany claiming that he had been visited by Jesus and told to lead a Crusade to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. Through a series of supposed portents and miracles he gained a considerable following, including possibly as many as 30,000 children. He led his followers south towards the Mediterranean Sea, in the belief that the sea would part on their arrival, allowing him and his followers to march to Jerusalem, but this did not happen. Two merchants gave free passage on boats to as many of the children as were willing, but they were actually either taken to Tunisia and sold into slavery, or died in a shipwreck on San Pietro Island off Sardinia during a gale. Some may have failed to reach the sea, dying or giving up from starvation and exhaustion.

The traditional narrative is probably conflated from some factual and mythical notions of the period including visions by a French or German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery....According to more recent research there seem to have actually been two movements of people (of all ages) in 1212 in Germany and France. The similarities of the two allowed later chroniclers to combine and embellish the tales.

In the first movement, Nicholas, a shepherd from the Rhineland in Germany who possessed an extraordinary power of speech, tried to lead a group across the Alps and into Italy in the early spring of 1212. Nicholas promised that the sea would dry up before them and allow his followers to cross into the Holy Land. Rather than intending to fight the Saracens, he said that the Moslem kingdoms would be defeated when their citizens converted to Christianity. His disciples went off to preach the call for the "Crusade" across the German lands, and they massed in Cologne after a few weeks. Splitting into two groups, the crowds took different roads through Switzerland. Two out of every three people on this ghastly journey died, while many others returned to their homes. About 7,000 arrived in Genoa in late August. They immediately marched to the harbor, expecting the sea to divide before them; when it did not many became bitterly disappointed. A few accused Nicholas of betraying them, while others settled down to wait for God to change his mind, since they believed that it was unthinkable he would not eventually do so. The Genoese authorities were impressed by the little band, and they offered citizenship to those who wished to settle in their city. Most of the would-be Crusaders took up this opportunity. Nicholas refused to admit defeat and traveled to Pisa, his movement continuing to break up along the way. He and a few loyal followers continued to the Papal States, where Pope Innocent III treated them kindly enough. The remaining ones departed for Germany after the Pontiff told them to be good and return home. Nicholas did not survive the second attempt across the Alps; back home his father was arrested and hanged under pressure from angry families whose relatives had perished while following the child.

Some of the most dedicated members of this Crusade were later reported to have wandered to Ancona and Brindisi; none reached the Holy Land.

The second movement was led by a twelve-year-old French shepherd boy named Stephan of Cloyes, who claimed in June that he bore a letter for the king of France from Jesus. Large gangs of youth around his age were drawn to him, most of whom claimed to possess special gifts of God and thought themselves miracle workers. Attracting a following of over 30,000 adults and children, he went to Saint-Denis, where he was seen to cause miracles. On the orders of Philip II, advised by the University of Paris, the people were implored to return home. Philip himself did not appear impressed, especially since his unexpected visitors were led by a mere child, and refused to take them seriously. Stephan, however, was not dissuaded, and began preaching at a nearby abbey. From Saint-Denis, Stephan traveled around France, spreading his messages as he went, promising to lead charges of Christ to Jerusalem. Although the Church was skeptical, many adults were impressed by his teaching. Still, few of those who initially joined him possessed his activeness; it is estimated that there were less than half the initial 30,000 remaining, a figure that was shrinking rapidly, rather than growing as perhaps anticipated.

At the end of June 1212, Stephan led his largely juvenile Crusaders from Vendôme to Marseilles. They survived by begging for food, while the vast majority seem to have been disheartened by the hardship of this journey and returned to their families.



A study published in 1977 cast doubt on the existence of these events, and many historians came to believe that they were not (or not primarily) children but multiple bands of "wandering poor" in Germany and France, some of whom tried to reach the Holy Land and others who never intended to do so. Early versions of events, of which there are many variations told over the centuries, are largely apocryphal...Recent research suggests the participants were not children, at least not the very young. The confusion started because later chroniclers, who were not witness to the events of 1212 and who were writing 30 years or more later, began to translate the original accounts and understood the Latin word pueri, meaning "boys", to mean literally "children". The original accounts did use the term pueri, but it had a derogatory slang meaning, as in present-day calling an adult man a "boy" to be condescending. In the early 13th century, bands of wandering poor started cropping up throughout Europe; these were people displaced by economic changes at the time which forced many peasants in northern France and Germany to sell their land—they were often referred to condescendingly as pueri. This mistaken literal interpretation of pueri as "children" gave rise to the idea of a "Children's Crusade" by later authors who found the story too good not to be true, particularly with so much public support and interest in crusading. Within a generation or two after 1212, the idea of children going on crusade became ingrained in history, retold countless times over the centuries with many different versions, and only in the 20th century has the myth been re-examined by looking at the earliest sources (see Historical studies AT LINK).