The Children's Crusade was a failed popular crusade by European Christians to establish a second Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land in the early 13th century. Some sources have narrowed the date to 1212. Although it is called the Children's Crusade, it never received the papal approval from Pope Innocent III to be an actual crusade. The traditional narrative is likely conflated from a mix of historical and mythical events, including the preaching of visions by a French boy and a 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 in Tunis. The crusaders of the real events on which the story is based left areas of Germany, led by Nicholas of Cologne, and Northern France, led by Stephen of Cloyes.
Accounts Traditional accounts
There are a number of traditional stories of the Children's Crusade which share similar facts. A boy began to preach in either France or Germany, claiming that he had been visited by Jesus, who instructed him to lead a crusade in order to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. Through a series of portents and miracles, he gained a following of up to 30,000 children. He led his followers south towards the Mediterranean Sea, in the belief that the sea would part on their arrival, which would allow him and his followers to walk to Jerusalem. This did not happen. Instead, two French merchants promised to take some children across the sea to the Holy Land. However, the children were either taken to Tunisia where they were sold into slavery by the merchants, or shipwrecked on San Pietro Island off Sardinia.
Modern accounts According to more recent researchers, there seem to have actually been two separate movements of people (including adults) in 1212 from Germany and France. The similarities of the two allowed later chroniclers to combine and embellish the tales.
Nicholas of Cologne in Germany In the first movement, Nicholas, a shepherd from the Rhineland in Germany,Bridge, Antony. The Crusades. London: Granada Publishing, 1980. tried to lead a group across the Alps and into Italy in the early spring of 1212. Nicholas said that the sea would open up before them just as the Lord had done for the Israelites and allow them to enter the Holy Land. Rather than intending to fight the Saracens, he said that the Muslim 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 the journey died, while many others returned to their homes. About 7,000 arrived in Genoa in late August. They immediately marched to the harbour, 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 that he would not eventually do so. The Genoese authorities were reportedly impressed by the group, 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 say he was defeated and travelled to Pisa, his movement continuing to break up along the way. In Pisa, two ships directed to Jerusalem agreed to embark several of the children who, perhaps, managed to reach the Holy Land. Nicholas and a few loyal followers instead continued to the Papal States, where they met Pope Innocent III. The remaining ones departed for Germany after the Pontiff exhorted them to be good and to return home to their families. 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 children.
Some of the most dedicated members of this Crusade were later reported to have wandered to Ancona and Brindisi; none are known to have reached the Holy Land.
Stephen of Cloyes in France The second movement was led by a twelve-year-old French shepherd boy named Stephen (Étienne) of Cloyes, who said in June that he bore a letter for the King of France from Jesus, who was disguised as a poor pilgrim. Large gangs of youths 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, including adults, but mostly children, he went to Saint-Denis, where he was reported 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. Stephen, however, was not dissuaded and began preaching at a nearby abbey. From Saint-Denis, Stephen travelled around France, spreading his messages as he went, and promising to lead charges of Christ to Jerusalem. Although the Church was skeptical, many adults were impressed by his teachings. Few of those who initially joined him possessed his activeness; it is estimated that there were fewer 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, Stephen led his largely juvenile Crusaders from Vendôme to Marseille. 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.
Two French merchants, Hugh the Iron and William of Posqueres, offered to carry any children that were willing to pay a small fee by boat. They were then taken to Tunisia, where they were sold into slavery by the merchants. However, roughly 1000 of the children died when two of their ships crashed into the coast of the San Pietro Island off Sardinia during a gale.
Historiography
Sources According to Peter Raedts, professor in Medieval History at the Radboud University Nijmegen, there are about 50 sources from the period that talk about the crusade, ranging from a few sentences to half a page. Raedts categorizes the sources into three types depending on when they were written: 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 consider the sources after 1250 to be authoritative, and of those before 1250, he considers only about 20 to be authoritative. It is only in the later non-authoritative narratives that a "children's crusade" is implied by such authors as Vincent of Beauvais, Roger Bacon, Thomas of Cantimpré, Matthew Paris and many others. At least one source, that of a man simply known as Otto the last puer, was written by an individual who claimed to have participated in the Children's Crusade.Dickson, Gary (2008). Children's Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory
Historical studies Prior to Raedts's study of 1977, there had only been a few historical publications researching the Children's Crusade.
The earliest were by the Frenchman G. de Janssens (1891) and the German Reinhold Röhricht (1876). They analyzed the sources but did not analyze the story.
American medievalist Dana Carleton Munro (1913–14), according to Raedts, provided the best analysis of the sources to date and was the first to significantly provide a convincingly sober account of the Crusade stripped of legends.
Later, J. E. Hansbery (1938–9) published a correction of Munro's work, but it has since been discredited as based on an unreliable source. German psychiatrist Justus Hecker (1865) did give an original interpretation of the crusade, but it was a polemic about "diseased religious emotionalism" that has since been discredited.
P. Alphandery (1916) first published his ideas about the crusade in 1916 in an article which was later published in book form in 1959. He considered the story of the crusade to be an expression of the medieval cult of the Innocents, as a sort of sacrificial rite in which the Innocents gave themselves up for the good of Christendom; however, he based his ideas on some of the most untrustworthy sources.Alphandery, P. (1954). La Chrétienté et l'idée de croisade. 2 vols.
Adolf Waas (1956) saw the Children's Crusade as a manifestation of chivalric piety and as a protest against the glorification of the holy war.Waas, A. (1956). Geschichte der Kreuzzüge
H. E. Mayer (1960) further developed Alphandery's ideas of the Innocents, saying children were the chosen people of God because they were the poorest; recognizing the cult of poverty, he said that "the Children's Crusade marked both the triumph and the failure of the idea of poverty."Mayer, H.E. (1972). The Crusades
Giovanni Miccoli (1961) was the first to note that the contemporary sources did not portray the participants as children. It was this recognition that undermined all other interpretations,Miccoli, G. (1961). "La crociata dei fancifulli". Studi medievali. Third Series, 2:407–43 except perhaps that of Norman Cohn (1957) who saw it as a chiliastic movement in which the poor tried to escape the misery of their everyday lives. In his book Children's Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory (2008), Gary Dickson discusses the growing number of "impossibilist" movements across Western Europe at the time. Infamous for their shunning of any form of wealth and refusing to join a monastery, they would travel in groups and rely upon small donations or meals from those who listened to their sermons to survive. Excommunicated by the Pope, they were forced to wander and likely made up a large portion of what is called the "Children's Crusade". After the crusade failed, the Pope stated that the devotees of Nicholas and Stephen had shamed all of the Christian leaders.
Historians have put the crusade in the context of the role of teenage boys in medieval warfare.Kelly DeVries, "Teenagers at War During the Middle Ages" in The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society, 1150–1650 (2002) ed by Konrad Eisenbichler pp 207–223. Literary scholars have explored its role in the evolution of the tale of the Pied Piper.Bernard Queenan, "The Evolution of the Pied Piper," Children's Literature (1978) 7#1 pp: 104–114.
Popular accounts Beyond the scientific studies there are many popular versions and theories about the Children's Crusades. Norman Zacour in the survey A History of the Crusades (1962) generally follows Munro's conclusions, and adds that there was a psychological instability of the age, concluding the Children's Crusade "remains one of a series of social explosions, through which medieval men and women—and children too—found release".
Steven Runciman gives an account of the Children's Crusade in his A History of the Crusades.Runciman, Steven (1951). "The Children's Crusade", from A History of the Crusades. Raedts notes that "Although he cites Munro's article in his notes, his narrative is so wild that even the unsophisticated reader might wonder if he had really understood it." Donald Spoto, in a 2002 book about Saint Francis of Assisi, said monks were motivated to call them children, and not wandering poor, because being poor was considered pious and the Church was embarrassed by its wealth in contrast to the poor. This, according to Spoto, began a literary tradition from which the popular legend of children originated. This idea closely follows H. E. Mayer.
Revisionism