Introduction to Children’s Crusade
The Children’s Crusade was an unsuccessful popular crusade by European Christians to create a second Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land during the early 13th century. Some historians have dated it specifically to 1212. Even though it is named the Children’s Crusade, it never gained the papal sanction by Pope Innocent III to be a legitimate crusade.
The folkloric story is probably merged from a combination of historical and mythical occurrences such as visions preached by a French and a German boy, an endeavor to convert Muslims peacefully in the Holy Land to Christianity, children marching in bands to Italy, and children sold into slavery in Tunis. The real-life crusaders of the events on which the novel is written left parts of Germany, guided by Nicholas of Cologne, and Northern France, guided by Stephen of Cloyes.
The Accounts
Conventional accounts
There are several conventional accounts of the Children’s Crusade that agree on similar facts. A boy starts preaching in France or Germany, saying he had been called upon by Jesus, who ordered him to call a crusade to convert Muslims to Christianity in peace. Through a series of miracles and signs, he amasses a group of as many as 30,000 children.
He takes his followers south towards the Mediterranean Sea, hoping that the sea would divide at their approach so that they could walk to Jerusalem. This does not occur. Instead, two French merchants volunteer to carry some children over the sea to the Holy Land. But the children are either carried to Tunisia, where the merchants sell them into slavery, or wrecked on San Pietro Island near Sardinia.
Current accounts
There appear to have been two distinct migrations of individuals (including adults) from Germany and France in 1212, according to more modern scholars. Later chroniclers were able to blend and add embellishments to the stories because of their similarities.
Germany’s Nicholas of Cologne
In the initial movement, Nicholas, a Rhineland shepherd from Germany, attempted to guide a group of people over the Alps and into Italy in early spring of 1212. According to Nicholas, the sea would part like it had for the Israelites and let his followers enter the Holy Land. Instead of wishing to combat the Saracens, he told that the Saracen kingdoms would be conquered when their people accepted Christianity. His followers departed to spread the call for the “Crusade” throughout the German states, and they concentrated in Cologne within a few weeks.
Dividing into two masses, the mobs took different routes through Switzerland. Two out of three travelers on the trip perished, and many others returned home. Approximately 7,000 came to Genoa in late August. They set off directly for the harbor, expecting the sea to part before them; when it did not, many were bitterly disillusioned.
Some blamed Nicholas for betraying them, but others sat down to wait for God to reconsider, as they thought it unimaginable that he would not eventually do so. The Genoese government were said to have been impressed with the group and offered citizenship to those who were willing to remain in their city. The majority of the potential Crusaders accepted this offer.
Nicholas would not admit defeat and went to Pisa, his movement further disintegrating en route. Two ships bound for Palestine in Pisa offered to take on some of the children who, possibly, made it to the Holy Land. Nicholas and a handful of faithful followers, however, went on to the Papal States, where they encountered Pope Innocent III.
The rest left for Germany after the Pontiff encouraged them to be well behaved and go back to their homes to be reunited with their families. Nicholas did not make it through the second attempt to cross the Alps; at home, his father was detained and executed due to pressure from outraged families whose kin had died in pursuit of the children.
None of the Crusade’s most devoted followers are known to have made it to the Holy Land; instead, some were said to have traveled to Ancona and Brindisi.
France’s Stephen of Cloyes
The second movement was instigated by a twelve-year-old French shepherd youth named Stephen (Étienne) of Cloyes, who in June reported that he carried a letter to the king of France from Jesus, disguised as a poor pilgrim. Large groups of youths of his age were attracted to him, most of whom reported having special gifts from God and believed they were miracle workers. Gathering a following of more than 30,000, both adults but mainly children, he traveled to Saint-Denis, where he was said to induce miracles.
As ordered by Philip II, with counsel from the University of Paris, the populace were urged to go back home. Philip himself was not impressed, particularly as his unwelcome guests were headed by a mere child, and refused to take him seriously. Stephen, though, was not deterred and started preaching at a local abbey.
From Saint-Denis, Stephen toured France, preaching his messages along the way, vowing to lead armies of Christ to Jerusalem. While the Church was dubious, many adults were impressed by his instruction. Few of the original members who had joined him shared his energy; it is estimated that fewer than half of the original 30,000 remained, a number that was dwindling fast, rather than increasing as perhaps expected.
Stephen led his mostly young Crusaders from Vendôme to Marseille at the end of June 1212. While the great majority appear to have been discouraged by the difficulties of this voyage and returned to their families, many managed to subsist by begging for food.
William of Posqueres and Hugh the Iron, two French traders, promised to transport any youngsters by boat for a nominal cost. After that, they were transported to Tunisia, where the traders sold them into slavery. But during a gale, several perished in a shipwreck on San Pietro Island off Sardinia.
The study of history
Sources
There are perhaps 50 documents from the era that discuss the crusade, ranging in length from a few phrases to a half-page, according to Peter Raedts, a professor of medieval history at Radboud University Nijmegen. Depending on when they were written, Raedts divides the sources into three categories:
- Contemporary sources written by 1220;
- Sources written between 1220 and 1250 (the authors could have been alive at the time of the crusade but wrote their memories down later);
- Sources written after 1250 by authors who received their information second or third hand.
Raedts does not find the sources after 1250 authoritative, and among the sources prior to 1250, he finds only around 20 to be authoritative. Only in the later non-authoritative accounts, a “children’s crusade” is suggested by authors like Vincent of Beauvais, Roger Bacon, Thomas of Cantimpré, Matthew Paris, and others. At least one account, that of a man by the name of simply Otto the last puer, was composed by someone who said he took part in the Children’s Crusade.
Studies of the past
Before Raedts’s research of 1977, there had been very few historical works investigating the Children’s Crusade. The first were by the Frenchman G. de Janssens (1891) and the German Reinhold Röhricht (1876). They examined the sources but did not examine the narrative. American medievalist Dana Carleton Munro (1913–14), in Raedts’ estimation, gave the most complete analysis of the sources to date and was the first to substantially give a plausibly sober account of the Crusade free from legends.
More recently, J. E. Hansbery (1938–9) came out with a refutation of Munro’s work, but it has now been discredited as having come from an unsound source. German psychiatrist Justus Hecker (1865) did provide an early interpretation of the crusade, but it was a polemic against “diseased religious emotionalism” that has been discredited.
In 1916, P. Alphandery presented his initial thoughts on the crusade in an article that was eventually turned into a book in 1959. Though he drew his conclusions from some of the least reliable sources, he saw the crusade myth as a manifestation of the medieval religion of the Innocents, a kind of sacrificial ceremony in which the Innocents sacrificed themselves for the sake of Christendom.
Adolf Waas (1956) viewed the Children’s Crusade as an expression of chivalric piety and as rebellion against the glorification of the holy war. H. E. Mayer (1960) took Alphandery’s theories of the Innocents a step further, stating that children were God’s chosen people because they were the poorest; acknowledging the cult of poverty, he stated that “the Children’s Crusade marked both the triumph and the failure of the idea of poverty.”
Giovanni Miccoli (1961) first pointed out that the modern sources did not describe the participants as children. It was this understanding that demolished all other analyses, with the possible exception of Norman Cohn (1957), who regarded it as a chiliastic crusade in which the poor attempted to flee from the squalor of their mundane existence. In his Children’s Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory (2008), Gary Dickson talks about the increased number of “impossibilist” movements throughout Western Europe during the period.
They are notorious for avoiding any kind of wealth and not becoming monks, they would travel in bands and survive on small offerings or meals from people who heard them preach. Excommunicated by the Pope, they were compelled to roam and presumably numbered much of what is referred to as the “Children’s Crusade.” The Pope said after the crusade ended that the followers of Nicholas and Stephen had humiliated all of the Christian leaders.
The role of teenage males in medieval combat has been used by historians to contextualize the crusade. Its significance in the development of the Pied Piper story has been examined by literary experts.
Well-known accounts
There are several popular interpretations and hypotheses on the Children’s Crusades in addition to the scientific research. Generally agreeing with Munro’s findings, Norman Zacour concludes in his survey A History of the Crusades (1962) that the Children’s Crusade “remains one of a series of social explosions, through which medieval men and women—and children too—found release” and adds that there was psychological instability of the time.
Steven Runciman provides an account of the Children’s Crusade in his A History of the Crusades. Raedts observes that “Though he refers to Munro’s article in his notes, his account is so fantastical that even the unsophisticated reader may question whether he had actually grasped it.” Donald Spoto, writing a 2002 book on Saint Francis of Assisi, stated monks were encouraged to refer to them as children, and not vagabond poor, since poverty was deemed holy, and the Church was ashamed of its riches in comparison to the poor. This, Spoto claims, started a literary convention from which popular children’s legend derived. This theory closely resembles that of H. E. Mayer.
The act of revising
The Dutch historian Peter Raedts, in a 1977 study, was the first to question the conventional account of these events. Historians increasingly thought that they were not (or not chiefly) children, but several groups of “wandering poor” in Germany and France. This notion derives largely from the usage of “parvuli” or “infantes” in two histories of the occurrence written by William of Andres and Alberic of Troisfontaines. The other records from the era provide no suggestion of an age at all, but the implication using the two terms gives a whole different interpretation.
Medieval authors tended to divide a life into four large sections with an assortment of age ranges attached to them. The Church later adopted this division into societal coding, and the term came to describe wage laborers or workers who were young and had no inheritance. The Chronica regia Coloniensis, which was penned in 1213 (a year following the crusade having allegedly occurred) mentions crusaders leaving “plows or carts which they were driving, and the flocks which they were grazing,” furthering the suggestion that it was not “puerti” the age, but “puerti” the colloquial term.
Another spelling, pueri, exactly translates to children, but indirectly means “the powerless.” Some of them attempted to make it to the Holy Land, but others never had any intention of doing so. Early descriptions of what happened, of which there are numerous versions retold over the centuries, are, according to this theory, mostly apocryphal.
In 2008, Gary Dickson amended Raedt’s portrayal of the “wandering poor” sans children, arguing that although it was not fully composed of real children, they did exist and were important.
According to further interpretations put up by various historians, the classic narrative of these events’ obsessions with children is meant to support how the Crusades were perceived at particular points in time. Medieval texts were the first to depict such religious movements with the naive and pure quality that is frequently associated with children. then by sources in more recent times to either promote or disparage conventional wisdom on Christianity and the Crusades.
Some Mysteries Related to Children’s Crusade
1. What Was the Original Cause of the Children’s Crusade?
The Children’s Crusade, which occurred in 1212, is shrouded in mystery because the actual motivations behind the event remain unclear. Most historical accounts agree that thousands of children from France and Germany set out to peacefully reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim control. But was this truly a religious mission, or were there other influences at play? Some believe that the children were driven by a combination of religious zeal, an apocalyptic belief, and social pressures, while others argue that economic or political factors played a larger role.
Some chronicles mention that the children were led by charismatic figures, often described as young shepherds, who claimed to have received divine visions instructing them to embark on the journey. These children were told that the Mediterranean Sea would part, allowing them to cross to the Holy Land. However, when the children arrived at the sea and found it uncrossable, many turned back, while others continued their journey under dire circumstances. It remains uncertain whether these young crusaders were manipulated or truly believed in their divine mission.
2. Were the Children of the Crusade Really Just Children?
One of the most debated aspects of the Children’s Crusade is the age of the participants. Many modern accounts emphasize that the crusaders were young children, with some reports stating that they were as young as 7 years old. However, other accounts suggest that many participants may have been teenagers rather than small children. Some historians argue that the term “children” could refer to adolescents, as medieval notions of age and maturity were different from our own.
Furthermore, the definition of “children” at the time might have been more fluid. In the medieval period, many individuals were considered adults by their teenage years, especially if they were able-bodied and capable of labor. Thus, the people who joined the Crusade may have been in their teens or early twenties, even though their journey is still called the Children’s Crusade. This ambiguity adds to the overall mystery surrounding the event and how the participants were perceived at the time.
3. What Happened to the Children Who Left on the Crusade?
The fate of the children who embarked on the Crusade is one of the most tragic and mysterious aspects of the story. The most widely accepted account is that the children were sold into slavery after their efforts failed. Upon reaching the Mediterranean, they were unable to cross the sea to reach the Holy Land. Some children were reportedly tricked by unscrupulous merchants into boarding ships, only to be sold into slavery in North Africa.
The historical records are vague, and details are scarce about how many children perished or how many returned home. Some estimates suggest that only a small fraction of the original participants made it back alive. Some sources claim that many children succumbed to exhaustion, starvation, or disease, while others faced cruel fates in foreign lands. The lack of direct records leaves this chapter of the Children’s Crusade largely unknown, adding to the enigma of the event.
4. Was the Children’s Crusade a Religious Movement or a Political Protest?
While the Children’s Crusade is often viewed through the lens of religious fervor, some historians believe there may have been more complex motivations behind the event. The Crusades, including the Children’s Crusade, were tied to broader political and social dynamics in medieval Europe. In a time when people were heavily influenced by religious ideas and the desire for salvation, could the children’s journey have been an expression of discontent with political and societal structures?
It is also possible that the Crusade was a form of resistance to the oppression faced by peasants, including economic hardships, heavy taxes, and poor living conditions. Many of the children were reportedly from poor families, and some scholars suggest that their participation in the Crusade might have been motivated by a desire for a better life or a sense of empowerment. The lack of definitive answers only deepens the mystery of whether the event was solely driven by religious convictions or whether other factors played a key role in its unfolding.
5. How Did the Children Plan to Cross the Mediterranean Sea?
A central mystery of the Children’s Crusade is the plan to cross the Mediterranean to reach the Holy Land. Several sources suggest that the children believed the sea would part, allowing them to march directly to Jerusalem. However, historical accounts also indicate that they arrived at the Mediterranean, only to be confronted by an impassable body of water, completely contrary to their expectations.
Some theories propose that the children’s leaders may have made unrealistic promises or were themselves misled by false visions or hopes. The question of how such a large group of young people, many without any real military or travel experience, could have been convinced to undertake such an impossible journey remains unclear. It’s possible that the leaders of the Crusade used religious fervor or divine promises to motivate the children, manipulating their idealism to push them toward an impossible goal.
6. Why Did So Many Children Participate in the Crusade?
The sheer number of children who joined the Crusade is remarkable. Thousands of young participants, including both boys and girls, set out on this mission. But why were so many children willing to leave their homes and embark on such a dangerous journey? One possibility is the religious climate of the time. The idea of “taking up the cross” and participating in the Crusades was a deeply ingrained part of European society.
It’s also worth considering the role of peer pressure and social influence. The Crusades had been ongoing for decades by the time the Children’s Crusade began, and religious leaders were likely encouraging such movements as part of a broader push for Christian dominance. Children, who may have lacked the critical thinking skills of adults, may have been especially vulnerable to such mass movements. Some scholars believe that the participation of so many children could be a result of widespread social pressure, religious indoctrination, or even fear of divine punishment for not participating.
7. What Role Did Leaders Play in the Children’s Crusade?
The role of the leaders in the Children’s Crusade is another mysterious element of the event. Several accounts mention young shepherds who led the Crusaders, one of the most famous being a French boy named Stephen of Cloyes. According to some reports, these leaders claimed to have been inspired by visions or direct messages from God, directing them to guide the children toward Jerusalem.
However, there is little known about these leaders, and their backgrounds remain unclear. Were they truly pious youths, or were they opportunists who took advantage of the zeal of the young crusaders? Some have speculated that these leaders might have been manipulated by others who had a vested interest in the Crusade’s failure. Others believe the leaders themselves may have believed in their mission but were ultimately incapable of guiding such a large group to success. The mystery of these leaders’ true motivations adds an intriguing layer to the events.
8. How Reliable Are the Sources About the Children’s Crusade?
One of the key reasons the Children’s Crusade remains mysterious is the lack of reliable sources. The event was recorded primarily by chroniclers who were not eyewitnesses and were writing years or even decades after the fact. These accounts were often sensationalized, exaggerated, or written with political and religious agendas in mind, leaving us with conflicting narratives.
Many of the accounts that do survive were written by clerics or medieval historians who may have viewed the Children’s Crusade through a lens of religious or moral judgment. As a result, details such as the exact number of participants, the role of religious leaders, and the fates of the children are often unclear or contradictory. This lack of firsthand sources makes it difficult to separate fact from legend, leaving historians with many gaps to fill in.
9. Was the Children’s Crusade an Isolated Event, or Part of a Larger Religious Movement?
While the Children’s Crusade is often seen as a unique and isolated event, some historians believe that it was part of a larger wave of religious fervor and social unrest in Europe at the time. The early 13th century saw a series of Crusades and religious movements, and the Children’s Crusade may have been a manifestation of broader social and spiritual currents.
During this period, many believed that salvation could be attained through acts of penance and piety, such as crusading. Some argue that the Crusade was not just a one-time occurrence but part of a larger trend of religious zeal that swept through Europe. The Children’s Crusade could be seen as a reflection of medieval society’s obsession with religious duty, the promise of divine favor, and the hope of redeeming oneself through sacrifice.
10. Why Has the Children’s Crusade Been So Little Discussed in Modern Times?
Despite its tragic nature, the Children’s Crusade is often overshadowed by other, more well-known events from the medieval period, such as the more established Crusades and the rise of powerful monarchies. The lack of widespread discussion about the Crusade may be due to the confusing and poorly documented nature of the event, as well as the uncomfortable truth that many children were exploited and enslaved during this time.
Additionally, the Children’s Crusade does not fit neatly into the narratives of military conquests or religious warfare that dominate our understanding of the Crusades. The event’s mysterious nature and the lack of definitive answers make it difficult to categorize and fully comprehend. This may explain why it remains relatively underexplored in historical discussions, despite its significant emotional and cultural impact.
