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.
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The popular recounting of the Children’s 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.
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