The Sretensky Monastery Publishing House is preparing to publish a new book by a well-known religious scholar, researcher of modern sectarianism, historian, public figure, writer "Chronicles of the Crusades of the Frankish Pilgrims in the Overseas Lands and Associated Events, as Recounted by Alexander Dworkin". With the permission of the author and the publisher, we publish an excerpt from the manuscript of this book.
One day in May 1212 in St. Denis, where the court of King Philip Augustus was staying, a twelve-year-old shepherd Stephen from the small town of Cloix near Orleans appeared. He brought with him a letter to the king, which he said was given to him by Christ Himself. The Savior appeared to him when he was tending his sheep and called him to go and preach. The king was not too impressed by this and ordered the boy to return home. However, Stefan, inspired by the mysterious stranger who appeared to him, already saw himself as a charismatic leader who managed to succeed where adults admitted their powerlessness. For the last fifteen years the whole country has been flooded with itinerant preachers calling for crusades against the Muslims in the East or in Spain, or against the heretics in the Languedoc. The hysterical boy could well have been imbued with the idea that he, too, could become a preacher and repeat the feat of Peter the Hermit, legends about whose greatness were passed from mouth to mouth. Not at all embarrassed by the indifference of the king, Stephen began to preach right at the entrance to the abbey of St. Denis, declaring that he was gathering children to save Christianity. The waters will part before them, and, as through the Red Sea, he will lead his army directly to the Holy Land.
The boy, who spoke very eloquently and emotionally, undoubtedly possessed the gift of persuasion. The adults were impressed, and the children flocked to him like flies to honey. After initial success, Stephen went on a tour to proclaim his call to various cities in France, gathering around him more and more new converts. The most eloquent of them he sent to preach in his own name. They all agreed to meet at Vendôme in about a month and from there to begin their march to the East.
Shocked contemporaries spoke of 30 thousand gathered to fight for the Cross - and all were under 12 years old
At the end of June, groups of children began to approach Vendôme from different directions. Shocked contemporaries spoke of 30,000 people present, all under the age of 12. Undoubtedly, at least several thousand children from all over the country gathered in the city. Some of them were from poor peasant families: their parents willingly let their offspring go on such a great mission. But there were also children of noble birth, who secretly fled from their homes. Among those gathered were girls, a few young priests and a few older pilgrims, attracted partly by piety, partly by pity, and partly by the desire to profit from the gifts that the compassionate population showered on children. The chroniclers called Stephen's inner circle "minor prophets". Groups of young pilgrims, the leader of each of which carried a standard with an oriflamme (Stefan declared it the motto of the campaign), accumulated in the city and soon, having overflowed it, were forced to settle outside its walls - in the field.
With friendly priests blessing the infant crusaders and the last of the grieving parents finally stepping aside, the expedition headed south. Almost everyone walked. However, Stefan, as befits a leader, demanded a special way of transportation: he rode on a cart painted in bright colors with a canopy protecting him from the sun. On both sides of him galloped boys of noble birth, whose condition allowed them to have their own horse. No one objected to the comfortable travel conditions of an inspired prophet. Moreover, he was treated as a saint, and the locks of his hair and pieces of clothing were distributed among the most faithful as miraculous relics.
The path turned out to be painful: the summer turned out to be record hot. The Pilgrims were entirely dependent on the kindness of the locals to share their food with them, but because of the drought, they themselves had few supplies, and even water was often in short supply. Many children died along the way, and their bodies were left lying on the sides of the road. Some did not stand the test, turned back and tried to return home.
In the morning the whole crowd rushed to the port to see how the sea would part before them.
Finally, the juvenile crusade reached Marseilles. The inhabitants of this trading city received the children cordially. Many were given lodging for the night in houses, others settled down on the streets. The next morning, the whole crowd rushed to the port to see how the sea parted before them. When the miracle did not happen, bitter disappointment set in. Some of the children, saying that Stefan had betrayed them, rebelled against him and headed back to their homes. But most remained, and every morning they came to the sea, expecting that God would still answer their prayers. A few days later, two businessmen were found - Hugo Ferreus and Guillaume Porkus (literal translation from French - something like "Iron" and "Swine"), who expressed their disinterested readiness to transport the young crusaders to the Holy Land for the mere reward of God. Stefan, without hesitation, gladly agreed to such a generous offer. The children were put on seven ships hired by businessmen, which left the port and headed for the open sea. Eighteen years passed before news of their fate reached Europe.
In the meantime, rumors of Stephen's mission had spread eastward, and the folly that had taken hold of the French children had also infected Germany, especially its Lower Rhine regions. A few weeks after the Orleans shepherd began his sermon, on the square in front of the Cologne Cathedral, the German peasant boy Nikolai, who was not even 10 years old, began to make fiery speeches. The young preacher appeared with a bench on which was a cross in the form of the Latin "T". The shocked listeners told each other that he would cross the sea without getting his feet wet and establish the eternal kingdom of peace in Jerusalem.
Nicholas, like Stefan, had a natural gift for eloquence and, wherever he appeared, he irresistibly attracted children who were ready to go on a pilgrimage with him. But if the French children expected to conquer the Holy Land by force, the Germans thought they could convert the Saracens to Christianity with the help of peaceful preaching. A few weeks later, a crowd of thousands of children and all sorts of disorderly rabble gathered in Cologne, which from there moved south through the Alps. Most likely, the Germans were on average a little older than the French, and with them there were more girls and more children of noble birth. Their column was also accompanied by many thieves and other criminals who needed to leave their homeland as soon as possible, as well as the ubiquitous prostitutes.
The expedition was divided into two parts. The first, numbering, according to the chroniclers, at least 20 thousand people, was led by Nicholas himself. On the way through the Western Alps, this group lost most of the children: young pilgrims died of hunger, at the hands of robbers, or, frightened by the difficulties of the campaign, returned home. Nevertheless, on August 25, several thousand wanderers reached Genoa and asked for shelter inside the city walls. The Genoese authorities at first agreed to accept them, but on reflection began to suspect a secret German conspiracy. As a result, the children were allowed to spend only one night in the city, but it was announced that everyone could live here forever. The young pilgrims, not in the least doubting that the next morning the sea would part before them, immediately agreed to these conditions.
Alas, the sea in Genoa turned out to be as deaf to their prayers as in Marseilles to the prayers of their French peers. Many children, disappointed, decided to stay in the city that sheltered them. Several Genoese patrician families trace their origins to these young German pilgrims. Nicholas himself, with the majority of his army, went on. A few days later they reached Pisa. There were two ships that were going to go to Palestine. Their teams agreed to take some of the children with them. They may have reached the Overseas, but their fate remains completely unknown. However, Nicholas, still waiting for a miracle, reached Rome with his most faithful followers, where they were received by Pope Innocent. The pontiff was touched by the piety of the children, but also struck by their naivety. Gently but firmly, he told them to go home, saying that when they grew up, they could fulfill their vows and go fight for the Cross.
The difficult return journey destroyed almost the entire remnant of this children's army. Hundreds fell from exhaustion in the journey and died miserably on the high roads. The worst fate, of course, befell the girls, who, in addition to all sorts of other disasters, were also subjected to all sorts of deceit and violence. Many of them, fearing disgrace in their homeland, remained in Italian cities and towns. Only small groups of children, sick and emaciated, ridiculed and abused, saw their homeland again. The boy Nikolai was not found among them. It is said that he allegedly was alive and later, in 1219, fought at Damietta in Egypt. But the furious parents of the missing children insisted on the arrest of his father, who allegedly used his son for his own purposes, amusing vanity. Along the way, my father was accused of slave trading, tried "along with other deceivers and criminals" and hanged.
Another German children's expedition was not more successful. She walked through the Central Alps and, after incredible trials and torments, reached the sea in Ancona. When the sea refused to part for them, the children headed south along the east coast of Italy and eventually reached Brindisi. There, some of them were able to board ships going to Palestine, but most trudged back. Only a few were able to reach their homes.
The ships arrived in Algiers. Children bought by local Muslims, and the unfortunate spent their lives in captivity
However, despite all their torments, they had a better fate than the French children. In 1230, a priest from the East arrived in France and told about what had happened to the young pilgrims who had left Marseilles. According to him, he was one of the young priests who went with Stephen, and with him plunged into the ships provided by the merchants. Two of the seven ships were caught in a storm and, together with the passengers, sank near St. Peter's Island (Sardinia), the rest soon found themselves surrounded by Saracen ships from Africa. The passengers learned that they were brought to this place under a prearranged deal to be sold into slavery. The ships arrived in Algiers. Many of the children were immediately bought by local Muslims and spent the rest of their lives in captivity. Others (including a young priest) were taken to Egypt, where Frankish slaves were paid a higher price. When the ships arrived in Alexandria, most of the human cargo was purchased by the governor to work on his lands. According to the priest, about 700 of them were still alive.
A small batch was taken to the slave markets of Baghdad, where 18 young men, refusing to convert to Islam, were martyred. The young priests and the few who were literate were more fortunate. The governor of Egypt - the son of Al-Adil Al-Kamil - showed interest in Western literature and writing. He bought them all and kept them as interpreters, teachers and secretaries, without trying to convert them to his faith. They lived in Egypt in quite acceptable conditions, and in the end this priest was allowed to return to France. He told the parents of his comrades in misfortune everything he knew, after which he sank into obscurity.
Later sources identify the two criminal Marseille slave traders with two merchants who, a few years later, were accused of participating in the Saracen conspiracy against Emperor Frederick II in Sicily. Thus, according to popular memory, both ended their days on the gallows, paying for their heinous crime.
It should be said right away that the Children's Crusade that took place in 1212 is questionable by many modern historians. That is, there was no children's campaign, and even two waves. The legend of children was invented by the chroniclers to please the Catholic Church. She needed a sacrificial rite, and innocent children's souls sacrificed themselves for the sake of Christianity. But only on paper, but in real life nothing like this happened.
This conclusion of experts in the Middle Ages is based on the fact that there are no more than 50 sources describing such a remarkable historical event. Moreover, all these sources are extremely short, from a few sentences to half a page.
Experts in medieval history divided all available information into 3 groups. The first group included texts written before 1220. The second group included sources dating back to 1220-1250. They could be written by authors who were alive during the children's campaign and put their memories on paper. The third group included texts written after 1250. It was already information obtained from second and third hands.
Modern historians do not consider sources after 1250 to be authoritative. The information given before 1250, but not all, can be considered the most plausible. There are no more than 20 most plausible texts. Moreover, these are small handwritten passages that provide generalized information. But there is no fundamental work with a chronologically detailed list of those distant events.
However, the authenticity of the Children's Crusade has been pointed out by many authorities. This is the Dominican monk Vincent Beauvais (1190-1264), who created the encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, the philosopher and Franciscan monk Roger Bacon (1219-1292), the Catholic writer Thomas Cantimpre (1201-1272), the English chronicler Matthew Paris (1200-1259). The significance of these people in history is enormous, and their authority is in no way inferior to the authority of modern professors from reputable universities. And therefore, let us reduce the share of doubt and get acquainted with those distant events that happened in 1212.
In the early spring of 1212, a 9-year-old boy, who went down in history as Nicholas of Cologne, declared that Jesus had appeared to him in a dream and commanded him to take the children to the Holy Land in order to liberate Jerusalem. The boy said that you need to go to Italy, go to the sea, and it will part. On the bottom of the sea, the children will reach Palestine, and there the Muslims, seeing such a miracle, will convert to Christianity.
Nicholas immediately had associates. They went through the lands of Germany, calling on children and teenagers to crusade. A few weeks later a large mass of young men and women gathered in Cologne. In total, there were about 25 thousand children. All of them moved to Italy by 2 roads through the Alps. On the way, two of the three died, and some were afraid of difficulties and turned back home. At the end of August, only 7,000 people arrived in Genoa.
They all went to the harbor and waited for the sea waters to part and the bottom to be exposed. However, nothing of the kind happened, and the children were deeply disappointed. Some of them began to accuse Nicholas of betrayal, but others stood up for him.
Meanwhile, the Genoese authorities, impressed by the religious impulse of the children, offered them citizenship. Most of the crusader children took advantage of this offer, but Nicholas refused. With a small group of associates, he went to Pisa, where he met with Pope Innocent III.
The pontiff released the children who came to him from the vow of the crusade and asked them to return home to their families. After that, the boys and girls went to Germany in the same way that they came. This time, Nicholas did not survive the crossing of the Alps and died. And his father was arrested in Germany and hanged at the request of the parents of children who died on the campaign.
But the Children's Crusade did not end there, as there was a second wave that originated in France. This time, the initiator was 12-year-old shepherd Stefan from Kroyes. In the month of May 1212, he declared that Jesus appeared to him in the robe of a poor man. He told Stephen to take the children to Jerusalem and free it from the Muslims. Jesus said that adult crusaders are selfish and evil people, and therefore God does not give them victory. Only sinless children without any weapons will be able to return the Holy Sepulcher to Christians.
Very soon, at least 30 thousand young men and women gathered near Stefan. The French king Philip II learned about this mass of religiously minded young people. He ordered Stephen to be brought to him, and he appeared, accompanied by several companions. The king talked to the boy, and refused to take him seriously. But Stephen continued to preach as he traveled through France. And although the church was skeptical of the young preacher, he impressed many French with his teachings.
While Stefan was preaching, only half of the 30,000 like-minded people remained. The rest went home. With the remaining 15 thousand, the young organizer of the crusade at the end of June 1212 went to Marseille. A huge crowd of children walked along the dusty medieval roads and begged for alms. Many could not stand the hardships, hunger, and other hardships of the journey and returned home. Only a quarter of the Children's Crusade made it to Marseilles.
The young crusaders came to the port and began to wait for the sea to part so that they could walk along the bottom without getting their feet wet. But the waters did not part, and the children standing on the shore experienced a feeling of deep disappointment. Most of them turned back and returned to their families. But the remaining merchants loaded onto ships, and the further fate of these young creatures is unknown. It is assumed that they were transported to Algeria, where they were sold into slavery.
Thus ended the Children's Crusade. It consisted of 2 waves. One of them originated in Germany, and the second in France. In both cases, the boys were present - Nicholas and Stefan, to whom Christ allegedly appeared and ordered to go to the Holy Land to liberate Jerusalem. Nicholas died, and the fate of Stephen after the arrival of the young crusaders in Marseille is shrouded in darkness. Whether these events are true or fiction is still unknown. And therefore, they just need to be taken into account and not unconditionally believe in all of the above..
In the summer of 1212, an event took place that we know as a children's crusade. A mass of children and girls, armed and equipped only with banners and psalms, set off to defeat the army of infidels. Holy faith or impenetrable fatal stupidity?
Chroniclers of the thirteenth century. described in detail the feudal quarrels and bloody wars, but did not pay close attention to this tragic page of the Middle Ages.
Children's campaigns are mentioned (sometimes briefly, in one or two lines, sometimes taking half a page to describe them) by more than 50 medieval authors; of these, only more than 20 are trustworthy, since they either saw the young crusaders with their own eyes, or, relying on eyewitness accounts, kept their records in the years close to the events of 1212. Yes, and the information of these authors is very fragmentary. Here, for example, is one of the references to the crusade of children in a medieval chronicle:
"Crusade, called children's, 1212"
“In the aforesaid era, a ridiculous sortie was undertaken: children and unintelligent people hastily and thoughtlessly set out on a crusade, driven more by curiosity than by concern for the salvation of the soul. Children of both sexes, boys and girls, and not only small children, but also adults, married women and girls went on this expedition - they all went in crowds with empty wallets, flooding not only all of Germany, but also the country of the Gauls and Burgundy. Neither friends nor relatives could in any way keep them at home: they resorted to any tricks to get on the road. Things got to the point that everywhere, in the villages and right in the field, people left their guns, leaving on the spot even those that were in their hands, and joined the procession. Since, when we encounter such events, we are often an extremely credulous crowd, many people, seeing in this a sign of true piety, filled with the Spirit of God, and not the result of a thoughtless impulse, hastened to supply the strangers with everything they needed, distributing food and everything in which they needed. But the clergy and some others, who had a more sound judgment and denounced this walk, which they found completely absurd, the laity gave a furious rebuff, reproaching them for unbelief and arguing that they opposed this act more out of envy and avarice than for the sake of truth and justice. Meanwhile, any work begun without a due test of reason and without relying on wise discussion will never lead to anything good. And so, when these crazy crowds entered the lands of Italy, they dispersed in different directions and scattered through the cities and towns, and many of them fell into slavery to the locals. Some, as they say, reached the sea, and there, trusting the crafty shipbuilders, they allowed themselves to be taken away to other overseas countries. Those who continued the campaign, having reached Rome, found that it was impossible for them to go further, since they did not have support from any authorities, and they finally had to admit that the waste of their strength was empty and in vain, although, however, no one could remove from them a vow to make a crusade - only children who had not reached a conscious age, and old people, bent under the weight of years, were free from it. So, disappointed and embarrassed, they set off on their way back. Once accustomed to marching from province to province in a crowd, each in his own company and without stopping singing, they now returned in silence, one by one, barefoot and hungry. They were subjected to all sorts of humiliations, and not one girl was captured by rapists and deprived of innocence.
The most detailed account of the children's crusades is contained in the chronicle of the Cistercian monk Albric de Troifontaine (Chalon Abbey on the Marne), but this account, as scientists have found, is also the least reliable.
The actual history of the children's crusades received any coherent coverage only in works written 40-50 years after the events described in them - in the compilation work of the French Dominican monk Vincent of Beauvais "Historical Mirror", in the "Big Chronicle" of the English monk from St. Albans by Matthew of Paris and in some others, where historical facts, however, are almost completely dissolved in the author's fantasy.
The only solid study of the children's crusade remains George Zabriskie Gray's book, published in 1870 and reprinted a hundred years later. An American Catholic priest of Polish origin was immensely surprised at the almost complete oblivion of such a significant event, and this prompted Gray to write his first and last book, for which it was necessary to literally collect crumbs of information about the crusade of children scattered in the chronicles of the XIII century. Gray sinned with lyrical digressions, verbosity and excessive sentimentality for a historian. But more than a hundred years have passed, and the book of the amateur writer is still out of competition. There was no worthy opponent and refuter of it. Not for lack of talent, but for lack of zeal.
So what happened in the hot, dry summer of 1212?
To begin with, let's turn to history, consider the causes of the crusades in general and the campaign of children in particular.
Causes of the Crusades.
For quite some time now, Europe has looked with alarm at what was happening in Palestine. The stories of the pilgrims returning from there to Europe about the persecution and insults they endured in the Holy Land excited the European peoples. Little by little, a conviction arose of the need to help Christianity in the East and return to the Christian world its most precious and revered shrines. But in order for Europe to send numerous hordes of various nationalities to this enterprise for two centuries, it was necessary to have special reasons and a special situation.
There were many reasons in Europe that helped to carry out the idea of the Crusades. Medieval society was generally distinguished by its religious mood; therefore, feats for the faith and for the good of Christianity were especially understandable at that time. In the 11th century, the Cluniac movement intensified and gained great influence, which caused an even greater desire for spiritual exploits.
According to Georges Duby, the crusades were a kind of pilgrimage. For “pilgrimage was a form of repentance, testing, a means of purification, preparation for the Day of Judgment. It was also a symbol: to give up the moorings and head for Canaan was, as it were, a prelude to earthly death and the acquisition of another life. The pilgrimage was also a pleasure: traveling through distant lands provided entertainment for the dejected dullness of this world. Traveled in a group, a group of friends. And, going to Santiago de Compostela or to Jerusalem, the knights took weapons with them, hoping to lightly rub the infidels; in the course of such travels, the idea of \u200b\u200ba holy war and the crusades took shape. The pilgrimage was not much different from the journeys periodically undertaken by knights hurrying to serve at the lord's court. Only this time it was about serving other seniors - saints.
The rise of the papacy was also of great importance for the Crusades. The popes understood that if they became the head of the movement in favor of the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher and liberated it, then their influence and greatness would reach extraordinary proportions. Already Pope Gregory VII dreamed of a crusade, but could not carry it out.
In addition, for all classes of medieval society, the crusades seemed very attractive from worldly points of view. Barons and knights, in addition to religious motives, hoped for glorious deeds, for profit, for the satisfaction of their ambition; merchants expected to increase their profits by expanding trade with the East; the oppressed peasants were freed from serfdom for participation in the crusade and knew that during their absence the church and the state would take care of the families they left behind in their homeland; debtors and defendants knew that during their participation in the crusade they would not be prosecuted by the creditor or the court.
So, along with the religious inspiration that engulfed Europe, there were other, purely worldly, material reasons for carrying out the crusade, for "that land [in the East, among the infidels] flows with honey and milk."
The dangerous position of Byzantium also affected the West, especially the papacy; although the Byzantine Church separated from the Western one, it nevertheless remained the main stronghold of Christianity in the East and was the first to take upon itself the blows of enemies - non-Christians. The popes, having supported Byzantium, in the event of a successful crusade, could count on its union with the Catholic Church.
The mood in Western Europe was prepared for the crusading enterprise. The pleading messages of the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos for help (driven to despair, constrained by the position of his state, which was on the verge of death, he sent messages to Western Europe, in which he pleaded for help against the infidels) reached the Western European sovereigns and the pope just in time .
Pope at the end of the XI century was Urban II, a Frenchman by birth. At the cathedral in Placencia (now Piacenza), in northern Italy, under his leadership, questions about "God's peace" were discussed ["God's peace" is a mandatory cessation for a relatively long period (up to 30 years) of hostilities in a particular country (region) Western Europe, prescribed by the Catholic Church at the end of the 10th - 12th centuries] and other useful church affairs. At this very time, requests from Alexei Komnenos for help were delivered to Placentia. The Pope briefed the council on the content of the Byzantine message; the audience reacted sympathetically to the message and expressed their readiness to go on a campaign against the infidels.6
A few months later, in 1095, Urban II moved to France, where a new council was convened in the city of Clermont, in southern France.
A lot of people came to this cathedral. There was not a single building in the city that could accommodate all those present at the cathedral. A huge crowd of people of different classes, gathered in the open air, gathered eagerly awaiting reports of important events. Finally, on November 26, Urban II addressed the audience with a fiery speech. This is how the chroniclers describe the cathedral in Clermont: “In the year from the incarnation of the Lord one thousand ninety-five, at the time when Emperor Henry [Henry IV (1050 - 1106), German king and emperor of the “Holy Roman Empire” (since 1056) reigned in Germany ] and in France, King Philip [Philip I (1052 - 1108), King of France from 1060], when in all parts of Europe various evils were growing and faith was wavering, in Rome there was Pope Urban II, a man of distinguished life and morals, who provided the saint church, the highest position and knew how to dispose of everything quickly and deliberately.
Seeing how the Christian faith is boundlessly trampled upon by everyone - both the clergy and the laity, how the sovereign princes are constantly fighting among themselves, now one, then the other - in contention with each other, they neglect the world everywhere, the blessings of the earth are plundered, many are unjustly kept chained in captivity, they are thrown into the most terrible dungeons, forced to redeem themselves for an exorbitant price, or subjected there to triple torture, that is, hunger, thirst, cold, and they die in obscurity; seeing how they indulge in violent desecration of the shrine, monasteries and villages are thrown into the fire, not sparing any of the mortals, they mock at everything divine and human; having also heard that the interior regions of Romania [In the era of the Crusades, Asia Minor territories of Byzantium and other regions were called Romania] were captured from the Christians by the Turks and were subjected to dangerous and devastating attacks, the pope, prompted by piety and love and acting at the behest of God, crossed over the mountains and with the help suitably appointed legates ordered to convene a cathedral in Auvergne [Auvergne is a historical region of France within the Central French massif.] in Clermont - this is the name of this city, where three hundred and ten bishops and abbots gathered, leaning on their staffs ... "
Such a solemn and, according to medieval concepts, reasoned overture to the Crusades is given in his “Jerusalem History” by the French priest and chronicler Fulcherius of Chartres, who accompanied Count Baldwin of Bouillon as a chaplain during the campaign to Edessa.
Already in the early spring of 1096, the crusader troops set out on a campaign. Their guiding star was the Holy City - Jerusalem.
Scattered throughout the cities and villages and repeated many times by an army of bishops, priests and monks, the Clermont sermon with its idea of liberating the “Holy Sepulcher” from the infidels and the promise to the participants in the campaign of complete forgiveness of sins caused a general spiritual upsurge and the widest response throughout the Western world. The masses of the common people, seized with a burst of religious enthusiasm, rushed to the "holy pilgrimage", ahead of the knights, who needed time to prepare equipment and settle family and property affairs. Abbot Guibert of Nozhansky writes in his History: “... Everyone, to whom a quick rumor delivered a papal prescription, went to his neighbors and relatives, admonishing [them] to enter the path of the Lord, as the expected campaign was then called. The zeal of the counts was already inflamed, and the chivalry began to think about a campaign, when the courage of the poor was kindled with such great zeal that none of them paid attention to the poverty of income, did not care about the proper sale of houses, vineyards and fields: everyone put on sale the best part of the property for an insignificant price, as if he was in cruel slavery, or was imprisoned, and it was about a speedy ransom ... What can I say about children, about old men who were going to war? Who can count the maidens and old men crushed by the burden of years? - Everyone sings of the war, if they do not take part in it; everyone is longing for martyrdom, which they go to in order to fall under the blows of swords, and they say: “You young people, join the battle, and let us be allowed to earn before Christ with our sufferings.”
“Some poor people, having shoed bulls, as they do with horses, and harnessing them to two-wheeled carts, on which their meager belongings were placed along with small children, dragged all this with them; when these children saw some castle or city that came across on their way, they asked if this was Jerusalem, which they were striving for ... While the princes, who needed large funds to support those who made up their retinue, prepared for a long and baggy campaign, simple people, poor in means, but numerous, gathered around a certain Peter the Hermit and obeyed him as their leader ... He went around cities and villages, preaching everywhere, and, as we [ourselves] saw, the people surrounded him with such crowds , he was bestowed with such generous gifts, his holiness was so glorified that I do not remember anyone who has ever been given such honors. Peter was very generous to the poor, distributing much of what was given to him ... This man, having gathered a large army, carried away partly by the general impulse, and partly by his sermons, decided to direct his path through the land of the Hungarians ... "
Along the way, crowds of the poor and individual detachments of knightly freemen robbed local residents, staged pogroms and themselves suffered considerable losses. The peasant detachments that reached Constantinople in the summer were prudently transferred to Asia Minor and in October 1096 were completely exterminated by the Seljuks.
At the end of 1096, crusading detachments of feudal lords also began to arrive in Constantinople. After numerous skirmishes and long persuasion, pledging to return to the Byzantine emperor those lands that they would conquer from the Turks, the crusaders crossed over to Asia Minor.
On the lands occupied by the crusaders by the beginning of the XII century. four states were formed: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of Tripoli, the principality of Antioch and the county of Edessa, in which the feudal orders that dominated Western Europe were reproduced in a more “pure”, classical form. A huge role in these states was played by the Catholic Church and organizations specially created by it - spiritual and knightly orders, which had extremely wide privileges.
The success of the crusaders in the East was largely due to the lack of unity in the ranks of the Muslims themselves, the struggle between petty local rulers. As soon as the rallying of Muslim states began, the crusaders began to lose their possessions: Edessa already in 1144. Called to improve the situation, the Second Crusade (1147 - 1149), inspired by Bernard of Clairvaux and led by the French king Louis VII and the German king Conrad III, turned out to be unsuccessful . In 1187, Saladin, who united Egypt and Syria under his rule, managed to capture Jerusalem, which caused the Third Crusade (1189 - 1192), headed by three European sovereigns: the German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, the French king Philip II August and the English King Richard I the Lionheart. In this campaign, the growing Anglo-French contradictions manifested themselves with unprecedented force, paralyzing the military potential of the crusaders after the death of Frederick and the departure of the German detachments. Taken after a long, two-year siege, Acre became the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Muslims. Richard I, without completing his vow, was forced to leave Palestine (having previously agreed with Saladin to allow pilgrims and merchants to visit Jerusalem for three years) after Philip II, who suddenly left for Europe, concluded an alliance against him with the new German emperor Henry VI.
In the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), launched at the call of Pope Innocent II, perhaps for the first time, both the divergence between the secular and religious aspirations of its participants and the growth of the universalist claims of the papal throne in the conditions of a sharp aggravation of relations with Byzantium were clearly manifested. Having set out on a campaign against the Muslims of Egypt, the crusaders, who owed the Venetians for transportation by sea, repaid their debt by conquering the Christian merchant city of Zadar, which competed with Venice, the overlord of which was the king of Hungary, and completed the campaign by storming and sacking Constantinople, mercilessly massacring its inhabitants and destroying many works of art.
Justifications for such a radical change in the direction of the campaign by the crusaders themselves leave no doubt that it was far from accidental, although, perhaps, not a foregone conclusion. Gunter of Paris explains the motives of the participants in the campaign in his History of the Conquest of Constantinople: “... They knew that Constantinople was a rebellious and hated city for the holy Roman Church, and did not think that its conquest by ours would be very objectionable to the supreme pontiff or even to (himself) God. In particular, the Venetians, whose fleet they used to sail, encouraged [the crusaders] to do this, partly in the hope of obtaining the promised money, for which this people are very greedy, partly because this city, strong, has many ships , claimed supremacy and dominion over all this sea ... There was, however, as we believe, another reason, much older [in origin] and important [than all these], namely, the advice of the goodness of the Lord, who intended such how to humiliate this people, filled with pride because of their wealth, and bring [it] to peace and harmony with the holy universal church. It seemed in accordance with [God's plans] that this people, which could not be corrected in any other way, would be punished by the death of a few and the loss of worldly goods, which they owned in abundance, and that the people of the pilgrims would be enriched with booty [taken] from the proud, and all [ their] land would pass into our possession, and that the western church would be adorned with sacred relics, which the unworthy (Greeks) appropriated to themselves, and would forever rejoice in them. It is also especially important that this city, often mentioned [by us], which has always been treacherous [in relation to] the pilgrims, having finally changed its inhabitants by the will of God, will remain faithful and unanimous [of the same faith] and will be able to provide us with all the more constant help in overcoming the barbarians, in conquering the Holy Land and mastering it, which is very close to it ... "In a letter from an unknown knight, a participant in the events, we find a more concise explanation:" ... [We] carried out the work of the Savior, [such] so that the eastern church, whose capital was Constantinople, with the emperor and all its empire) would recognize itself as the daughter of its head - the Roman high priest and faithfully obey him in everything with proper humility ... "
After the capture of half of the Byzantine Empire, plans for a further campaign to the East and the "liberation of the Holy Sepulcher" were abandoned. On the conquered territory, the crusaders founded the so-called Latin Empire (as opposed to the "Greek" - Byzantine), which did not last long. In 1261, the Greeks again captured Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire, although the latter never managed to recover from the defeat that the “Christian knights” subjected it to.
Devastation, strife and exhausting crusades devastated European cities and villages. People did not even want to think about another bloody massacre for the "Holy Sepulcher". Only the papal curia did not let up. Pope Innocent III constantly sent out his legates to inspire the masses and the barons to a new campaign against the infidels. And the people were inspired. But only in words. No one was in a hurry to acquire military glory and lay down his head for the "second paradise of pleasures" even in order to immediately get into the first one. The pope burst into threats of disgrace and excommunication, the priests excelled in eloquence, and the people, tearing their throats in cries of approval, stubbornly did not want to join the ranks of the crusader army.
How, after all, to knock out a spark and ignite the fire of a holy war in such difficult times for the church? The people, who used to be like gunpowder (not yet invented at that time), are now like wet deadwood! Well, no other people are foreseen, and it is necessary to look for an armchair more searching than the former!
The idea of a holy war in the name of the liberation of Jerusalem from the "infidels" did not fade away in Europe, despite the failures that befell the crusader during the third crusade.
After the capture of Constantinople by the knights during the Fourth Crusade, the idea of liberating the “Holy Sepulcher” received a new impetus: “God’s work” will be successful if it ends up in the hands of those who are least sunk in sins and self-interest.
So, Peter of Blois, who wrote a treatise “On the need to hasten the Jerusalem campaign”, condemned the knights in it, who turned the crusade into a worldly adventure; such an adventure, he argued, was doomed to failure. The liberation of Jerusalem will be possible only for the poor, strong in their devotion to God. Alan of Lilsky, in one of his sermons, lamenting the fall of Jerusalem, explained it by the fact that God had abandoned the Catholics. “He does not find refuge either with the priests, because simony (corruption) found refuge here, or with the knights, because robberies serve as a refuge for them, or among the townspeople, because usury flourishes among them, and among merchants - deceit, nor among the city mob, where theft has built its nest. And - again the same refrain: Jerusalem will be saved by the poor, those very poor in spirit, which are spoken of in the Gospel of Matthew. Poverty was portrayed as the source of all virtues and the guarantee of the coming victory over the "infidels".
Against the background of such sermons, many people of that time came to the conclusion that if adult people burdened with sins cannot return Jerusalem, then innocent children must complete this task, since God will help them. And then, to the joy of the pope, a prophet-lad appeared in France, who began to preach a crusade.
Children's Crusade
The famous medievalist historian Jacques Le Goff asked: "Were there children in the medieval West?" If you look closely at works of art, you won't find them there. Later, angels will often be depicted as children and even as playful boys - half angels, half cupids. But in the Middle Ages, angels of both sexes were portrayed only as adults. “When the sculpture of the Virgin Mary had already acquired the features of soft femininity, clearly borrowed from a specific model,” writes Le Goff, “the baby Jesus remained a terrifying-looking freak that interested neither the artist, nor the client, nor the public.” Only at the end of the Middle Ages did the iconographic theme spread, reflecting a new interest in the child. In conditions of the highest infant mortality, this interest was embodied in a feeling of anxiety: the theme of the “Massacre of the Innocents” was reflected in the spread of the holiday of the Innocents, under the “patronage” of which there were shelters for foundlings. However, such shelters appeared no earlier than the 15th century. The Middle Ages hardly noticed the child, having no time either to be touched or to admire him. Leaving the care of a woman, the child immediately found himself thrown into the exhausting rural labor or military training - depending on the origin. In both cases, the transition was carried out very quickly. Medieval epic works about the childhood of legendary heroes - Sid, Roland, etc. - draw heroes as young people, not boys. The child comes into view only with the advent of a relatively small urban family, the formation of a more personal burgher class. According to a number of scientists, the city suppressed and fettered the independence of women. She was enslaved by the hearth, while the child was emancipated and filled the house, school and street.
Le Goff is echoed by the well-known Soviet researcher A. Gurevich. He writes that according to the ideas of the people of the Middle Ages, a person does not develop, but passes from one age to another. This is not a gradually prepared evolution leading to qualitative shifts, but a sequence of internally unrelated states. In the Middle Ages, the child was looked upon as a small adult, and there was no problem of the development and formation of the human personality. F. Aries, who studied the problem of attitudes towards the child in Europe in the Middle Ages and in the initial period of the New Age, writes about the ignorance of the category of childhood in the Middle Ages as a special qualitative state of a person. "Medieval civilization," he argues, is a civilization of adults. Until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, fine arts saw children as reduced adults, dressed in the same way as adults and built like them. Education is not age-appropriate, and adults and adolescents are taught together. Games, before becoming children's games, were games of chivalry. The child was considered the natural companion of the adult.
Moving away from the primitive age classes with their initiation rites and forgetting the principles of education of antiquity, medieval society ignored childhood and the transition from it to adulthood for a long time. The problem of socialization was considered solved by the act of baptism. Singing love, courtly poetry contrasted it with marital relations. Christian moralists, on the contrary, warned against excessive passion in the relationship between spouses and saw in sexual love a dangerous phenomenon that must be curbed if it cannot be completely avoided. Only with the transition to the New Age, the family began to be considered not as a union between spouses, but as a cell, which was entrusted with socially important functions for raising children. But above all, this is a bourgeois family.
According to Gurevich, in the specific attitude to childhood in the Middle Ages, a special understanding of the human personality is manifested. Man, apparently, is not yet able to realize himself as a single developing entity. His life is a series of states, the change of which is not internally motivated.
A general analysis of the attitude towards children in the Middle Ages will help us understand such an episode as the children's crusade. It is now difficult to imagine that parents would let go of their children, so that they would follow on foot either to Rome or to the Middle East. Maybe for a medieval person there was nothing extraordinary in this? Why shouldn't the little man try to do what the big man can do? After all, the little one is the same son of the Lord as the big one. On the other hand, isn't this whole campaign nothing more than a fairy tale, composed already when they began to compose anything about children in general?
The legendary crusade of children gives an excellent idea of how the mentality of the people of the Middle Ages differed from the worldview of our contemporaries. Reality and fiction in the head of a man of the XIII century were closely intertwined. The people believed in miracles. Moreover, he saw and created them. Now the idea of a children's trip seems wild to us, but at the same time, thousands of people believed in the success of the enterprise. True, we still do not know whether it was or not.
The Crusades were an era in themselves. The most heroic and at the same time one of the most controversial pages in the history of chivalry, the Catholic Church and all of medieval Europe. The event held "to please God" least of all corresponded in its methods not only to Christian ethics, but also to the usual norms of morality.
The beginning of the crusades to the East was due to several serious reasons. First, it is the plight of the peasantry. Oppressed by taxes and duties, having experienced a number of terrible disasters in the form of epidemics of plague and famine over several years (from the late 80s to the mid-90s of the 11th century), the common people were ready to go as far as they liked, just to find a place where they food.
Secondly, the chivalry also experienced hard times. By the end of the 11th century, there were almost no free lands left in Europe. The feudal lords stopped dividing their possessions between their sons, switching to the system of majorat - inheritance only by the eldest son. A large number of poor knights appeared, who, by their origin, did not consider it possible to do anything other than war. They were aggressive, rushed into any adventure, turned out to be mercenaries during numerous civil strife, just engaged in robbery. In the end, they had to be removed from Europe, there was a need to consolidate the chivalry and direct its militant energy somewhere “outside”, to solve external problems, since further effective management of European territories by kings, large feudal lords and the church became very problematic.
The third factor is the ambitions and material claims of the Catholic Church and, first of all, the papacy. The unification of believers by some idea objectively led to the strengthening of the power of Rome, since the idea came from there. The campaign to the East promised "interception" by the pope of the religious initiative in Eastern Europe from Constantinople, strengthening the positions of Catholicism.
Also, such a military event promised both the church, and the feudal lords, and even the poor, enormous wealth. And the churches not only at the expense of, in fact, military booty, but also at the expense of rich donations and European lands of the crusaders who went to war.
The most convenient and, it seems, obvious pretext was a campaign under the banner of war against the "infidels" - that is, with the Muslims. The immediate reason for the start of the campaign was the appeal of the Byzantine emperor Alexei Comnenus for help to Pope Urban II (1088-1099) (his name before taking the papacy was Oddon de Lagerie). The Byzantine Empire suffered from a combined attack on it by the Seljuk Turks and the Pechenegs. Vasilevs addressed the "Latins" as brothers in faith. And without this, since the 70s of the XI century, the idea of the need to liberate the Holy Sepulcher, which was located in Jerusalem captured by the Turks, was in the air. Thus, the eyes of believers, who from the time of Augustine turned to the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the Kingdom of God, turned to the earthly Jerusalem. The dream of a future heavenly bliss after death is intricately intertwined in the minds of Christians with concrete, earthly rewards for righteous labors. These sentiments were used by the organizers of the crusades.
The Pope lifted the excommunication from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios, which had hitherto been on him as a schismatic. In March 1095, the pontiff once again listened to the ambassadors of Alexei at the cathedral in Piacenza, and in the summer of 1095 Urban II went to France. For some time he negotiated with the southern French monasteries, members of the most influential Cluniac congregation, large feudal lords and authoritative priests. Finally, on November 18, a church council began in the city of Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne. As often happened, in the city where such an important forum took place, there was a mass of visiting people. In total - about 20 thousand people: knights, peasants, vagabonds, etc. The Council discussed, in general, exclusively church problems. But at the end of it, on November 26, Urban II, not far from the city on a plain in the open air, spoke to the people with a speech, which made Clermont Cathedral so famous.
The Pope urged Catholics to take up arms in the war against "the Persian tribe of the Turks... who reached the Mediterranean... killed and took away many Christians." The liberation of the Holy Sepulcher was declared a separate task. The Pope tried to present the war as an easy walk, promising rich booty. Jerusalem, according to him, was a place where milk and honey flowed, in the East everyone will receive new lands, which in cramped Europe are not enough for everyone. The pontiff urged to abandon internal strife for the common cause. Urban II was extremely specific and straightforward. Everyone who went on a campaign was forgiven of sins (including future ones - committed during a charitable war). The crusaders could count on getting into paradise. The pope's speech was constantly interrupted by an enthusiastic crowd shouting: "God wants it so!" Many immediately vowed to go on a campaign and attached crosses made of red fabric to their shoulders.
The church took over the protection of the lands (and, of course, the conduct of business) of the departed crusaders, their debts to creditors were declared invalid. The feudal lords who did not want to go on a campaign had to pay off with rich gifts in favor of the clergy.
The news of the beginning of the campaign quickly spread throughout Europe. Probably, the pope himself did not expect such an effect from his speech. Already in the spring of 1096, thousands of poor people from the Rhine lands set off on their journey. Then the knights also moved to the East. Thus began the First Crusade.
In total, united in six large groups, tens of thousands of people made this campaign. First, separate detachments set off, largely composed of the poor, led by Peter the Hermit and the knight Walter Golyak. Their first "charitable" deed was Jewish pogroms in German cities:
Trier, Cologne, Mainz. In Hungary, they also did a lot of trouble. The Balkan Peninsula was plundered by the "Christ warriors".
Then the crusaders arrived in Constantinople. The most numerous detachment moving from southern France was led by Raymond of Toulouse. Bohemond of Tarentum went with his army to the East through the Mediterranean Sea. Robert of Flanders reached the Bosphorus by the same sea route. The number of crusaders who gathered in various ways in Constantinople probably reached 300,000. Byzantine emperor Alexei I was horrified by the prospect of unrestrained looting in the capital that opened before him. And it was not necessary to especially count on the fact that the Latins would only return to him the lands taken by the Muslims. Through bribery and flattery, the emperor won the vassal oath from most of the knights and tried to send them on their way as soon as possible. In April 1097, the crusaders crossed the Bosporus.
The first detachment of Walter Golyak was by that time already defeated in Asia Minor. But other troops that appeared here in the spring of 1097 easily defeated the army of the Nicaean Sultan. In the summer, the crusaders split up: most of them moved towards the Syrian city of Antioch. In early July 1098, after a seven-month siege, the city surrendered. Meanwhile, some French crusaders established themselves in Edessa (now Urfa, Turkey). Baldwin of Boulogne founded his own state here, stretching on both sides of the Euphrates. It was the first crusader state in the East.
In Antioch, the crusaders, in turn, were besieged by the emir of Mosul Kerbuga. Hunger has begun. Being exposed to great danger, they left the city and were able to defeat Kerbuga. After a long quarrel with Raymond, Antioch was taken over by Bohemond, who, even before its fall, managed to force the rest of the crusader leaders to agree to the transfer of this important city to him. Soon, in Asia Minor, a war began between the crusaders and the Greeks of the coastal cities, who hoped to get rid of not only the Muslim dictate, but also the new Western masters.
From Antioch, the crusaders moved south along the coast without any special obstacles and captured several port cities along the way. The way to Jerusalem opened before the knights, but they did not immediately move to the desired city. An epidemic broke out - far from the last during the Crusades. "Christ's army" lost many people every day without any battles. The leaders split up, and their detachments scattered over the surrounding territories. Finally, the departure from Antioch was scheduled for March 1099.
Gottfried of Bouillon and the Count of Flanders set out for Laodicea. The whole army united under the walls of Arhas, the siege of which had already been begun by Raymond. At this time, the ambassadors of the Cairo Caliph, who had recently become the ruler of Jerusalem, arrived to the crusaders. They declared that the gates of the holy city would only open to unarmed pilgrims. This did not affect the plans of the Europeans in any way. Taking Arkhas, they continued to move towards the main goal. At that time, the Christian army numbered up to 50 thousand people. These were already battle-hardened warriors, and not the rabble of the first stage of the crusades. But at Jerusalem, which opened their eyes, they looked with the same childish delight and reverent awe, like any person of that era. The riders dismounted from their horses and walked barefoot; cries, prayers and a thousand times repeated exclamation "Jerusalem!" announced to the district.
The crusaders settled down in three detachments: Gottfried, Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders - to the northeast of the city, Tancred - to the northwest, Raymond - to the south. Jerusalem was defended by an Egyptian garrison of 40,000 men. The city thoroughly prepared for the siege: food was prepared, wells were filled up throughout the surrounding area and the bed of the Kidron River. The Knights are in big trouble. They suffered from thirst and heat, there was a treeless space around, they had to send expeditions to remote areas behind the forest, from which huge siege engines, ladders and battering rams were built. Logs were also used, from which rural houses and churches of the area were made. But from Genoa, the merchants promptly sent ships with food and qualified carpenters and engineers.
The Saracens staunchly defended themselves, poured boiling tar on the heads of their opponents, threw stones at them, hit them with arrows. The crusaders resorted to a variety of methods. Once they even made a religious procession around the impregnable fortress. The decisive assault began on July 14, 1099. At night, Gottfried's warriors secretly moved their camp to the eastern part of Jerusalem, which was less protected by the Saracens. At dawn, on a signal, all three parts of the army began to move. From three sides, colossal erratic towers moved towards the walls of Jerusalem. But after a twelve-hour battle, the Muslims managed to repel the enemy. Only the next day, from the tower of Gottfried, a bridge was finally thrown over the wall, along which his soldiers broke into the city. The knights managed to set fire to the defensive devices of the Saracens. Soon both Raymond and Tancred were in Jerusalem. It happened at three o'clock in the afternoon, on Friday, on that day of the week and at the time when the Savior died on the cross.
A terrible massacre and no less terrible robbery began in the city. For a week, the "pious" conquerors destroyed about 70 thousand people. And they, with prayers and sobs, with bare feet and bare heads, atoned for sins in the Church of the Resurrection in front of the Tomb of Christ.
Soon, in a battle with a large Egyptian army at Ascalon, the united crusading army defended its main conquest. The crusaders took possession of most of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Four states were created on the occupied territory by the knights: the kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of Tripoli, the principality of Antioch and the county of Edessa. Chief among the rulers was King Gottfried of Jerusalem, but the rest behaved quite independently. The rule of the Latins, however, was short-lived.
From the very beginning, the Crusades were a gamble. Huge heterogeneous troops under the leadership of often feuding ambitious kings, counts and dukes, with an ever-decreasing religious zeal, thousands of kilometers from their homeland, had to experience insurmountable difficulties. And if during the first campaign the Europeans managed to stun the Muslims with their pressure, then they could not create a solid system of state administration here, and then they could not defend their conquests.
In 1137, the Byzantine Emperor John II attacked and captured Antioch. In 1144, the strong emir of Mosul, Imad-ad-din Zengi, took the county of Edessa, an outpost of the Christian world in the East. Difficult times have come for other knightly states. From all sides they were attacked by Syrians, Seljuks and Egyptians. The king of Jerusalem lost control of his own vassal princes.
Naturally, the fall of Edessa was to be a heavy blow for the Christians. This event caused a particularly great resonance in France. King Louis VII the Young was quite romantic and at the same time militant. He was seized with a thirst for exploits, which he had heard about since childhood. This impulse was supported by Pope Eugene III, and one of the most authoritative confessors of Europe - the abbot of Clairvaux Bernard, a supporter of strict morals, a teacher of both Eugene, and abbot Suger - an influential adviser to Louis. In the city of Wesel in Burgundy, Bernard convened a council, at which, in the presence of the king, on March 31, 1146, he delivered a fiery speech, calling on all Christians to rise up to fight against the infidels. “Woe to him whose sword is not stained with blood,” said the preacher. Immediately, many, and, first of all, Louis, laid crosses on themselves as a sign of readiness to go on a new campaign. Bernard soon arrived in Germany, where, after some struggle, he managed to persuade King Conrad III to support the new undertaking.
From the very beginning of the campaign (spring of 1147), the Germans and French coordinated their actions poorly, each pursuing their own goals. So, the French wanted to move to the East by sea, using the help of the Norman king of Sicily, Roger, while the Germans agreed with the Byzantine emperor Manuel and were going to move by land through Hungary and the Balkans. Conrad's point of view won, and the angry Roger, already at enmity with Byzantium over southern Italy, made an alliance with the African Muslims and made a series of devastating raids on the Greek coast and islands.
The Germans were the first to reach Constantinople in September 1147, just like the last time, having managed to inspire horror with their looting along the way. Manuel, like Alexei Komnenos, did everything possible to quickly bring the Latins to Asia Minor. On October 26, the Germans suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Iconian sultan near Dorileus in Anatolia. Returning to Nicaea, many thousands of Germans died of starvation. But the warriors of Louis, who arrived in the Byzantine capital a little later, Manuel told about the amazing successes of Conrad, causing them to envy. Soon the French also ended up in Asia Minor. At Nicaea, the armies of the kings met and continued their journey together. Trying to get around the places of the recent Dorylean tragedy, the monarchs led the troops in a difficult detour through Pergamon and Smyrna. The Turkish cavalry constantly disturbed the columns, the crusaders lacked fodder and food. The matter was complicated and slowed down by the fact that Louis VII took with him a large retinue, completely inappropriate in a difficult campaign, a magnificent court headed by his beautiful wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. The help of the Byzantine army was insufficient - apparently, Emperor Manuel, in the depths of his soul, wished for the defeat of the crusaders. On July 3, 1147, a fierce battle broke out near the village of Hittin, west of Lake Genisaret. The Muslim army outnumbered the Christian forces. As a result, the crusaders suffered a crushing defeat. Countless of them were killed in battle, and the survivors were taken prisoner. In the hands of the Christians there were only a few powerful fortresses in the north: Krak-de-Chevalier, Châtel Blanc and Margat.
At the beginning of 1148, a greatly depleted crusading army arrived in Ephesus. From here, Louis with great difficulty, having endured a series of battles, cold and heavy rains, reached Antioch in March 1148. The last part of the way his army did on Byzantine ships. In Antioch, the French received a warm welcome, festivities and celebrations. Eleanor struck up an intrigue with the local ruler. Louis VII lost all enthusiasm, and his army - the necessary fighting spirit.
Meanwhile, Konrad no longer thought about joint actions with his ally. With Jerusalem's King Baldwin III, he agreed to speak not against the Emir of Mosul - the powerful offender of Edessa, for which, it seemed, the whole campaign was started - but against Damascus. The French monarch was forced to join them. The 50,000-strong Christian army spent a lot of time under the walls of the Syrian capital. Its leaders quickly quarreled among themselves, suspecting each other of treason and of wanting to capture most of the potential booty. The attack on Damascus prompted its ruler to conclude an alliance with another Muslim feudal lord, the prince of Aleppo. The combined forces of the Muslims forced the crusaders to retreat from Damascus.
In the autumn of 1148, on Byzantine ships, the Germans left for Constantinople, and from there they left for Germany. Louis also did not dare to continue military operations. At the beginning of 1149, the French crossed over to southern Italy on Norman ships, and in the autumn of that year they were already at home.
The second crusade turned out to be a completely useless undertaking. In addition to numerous losses, he did not bring anything to his leaders and initiators - neither glory, nor wealth, nor lands. The abbot of Clairvaux, for whom the defeat of the campaign was a personal tragedy, even wrote a "justification" in which he attributed the disasters of the war to the crimes of Christians.
During the Second Crusade, some feudal lords organized similar local events in Europe. So, the Saxons attacked the Slavic tribes between the Elbe and the Oder, and a number of French, Norman and English knights intervened in Spanish affairs, fought against the Moors and captured Lisbon, which became the capital of Christian Portugal.
If you can imagine an "all-star match" in the Middle Ages, then it is quite possible to call it the Third Crusade. Almost all the bright characters of that time, all the most powerful rulers of Europe and the Middle East took a direct part in it. Richard the Lionheart, Philip II Augustus, Frederick Barbarossa, Saladin. Everyone is a personality, everyone is an era, everyone is a hero of his time.
After the Second Crusade, things went from bad to worse for Christians in the East. The outstanding statesman and talented commander Sultan Saladin became the leader and hope of the Muslim world. First, he came to power in Egypt, then subjugated Syria and other territories in the east. In 1187 Saladin took Jerusalem. The news of this was the signal for the start of another crusade. The Roman legates managed to convince the powerful sovereigns of France, England and Germany - Philip, Richard and Frederick to move to the East.
The German emperor chose the already well-known route through Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula for movement. His crusaders, led by the wise and practical 67-year-old Barbarossa, were the first to set out on the campaign in the spring of 1189. Naturally, relations between the Germans and the Byzantines traditionally deteriorated as soon as the Latins ended up on the territory of Byzantium. Skirmishes began, a diplomatic scandal erupted. Frederick seriously thought about the siege of Constantinople, but in the end everything was more or less resolved and the German army crossed into Asia Minor. She was slowly but surely moving south, when the irreparable happened. While crossing the Salef River, the emperor drowned. This event made a depressing impression on the pilgrims. Many of them returned home. The rest moved to Antioch.
The French and the British agreed to act together. The cunning and subtle diplomat Philip from the time of the wars against Henry II Plantagenet was on the most friendly terms with the young English king Richard I. The latter was the complete opposite of Philip. State affairs interested him insofar as. He was much more interested in war, exploits, glory. The first knight of his time, physically strong, brave Richard the Lionheart was a short-sighted politician and a bad diplomat. But so far, before the campaign, the friendship of the monarchs seemed unshakable. It took them some time to prepare, within the framework of which a special tax was established in their countries for all segments of the population - the so-called Saladin tithe. Richard was particularly diligent in raising money. It was said that the king would sell London if there was a buyer for it. As a result, a sizable army gathered under his command.
Philip Augustus and Richard set out on a campaign in the spring of 1190. Their path lay through Sicily. Already here the fragility of their union was revealed. Richard laid claim to this island. He began hostilities against the Sicilians (more precisely, the Normans who owned the kingdom), because of which he quarreled with the more peaceful Philip. Finally the British and French moved on. Philip's troops safely reached the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and the British were overtaken by a storm that nailed them to the shores of Cyprus. Richard conquered the island from the usurper Isaac Komnenos and declared it his possession. Soon he pledged it to the Templars. It was not until June 1191 that the English forces arrived at Acre.
The main events were unfolding near this seaside Syrian city. Actually, the fortress was not supposed to be of great strategic value to Christians. At first (back in 1189), the Christian ruler of Jerusalem, Guido Lusignan, deprived of his city, got involved in the struggle for it. Gradually, all detachments from Europe, who came one by one, joined him. One by one, they were crushed by Muslims. The siege dragged on, near Acre grew, in fact, a Christian knightly city. Acre was well defended, with food and reinforcements coming in by sea from Egypt and by land from Mesopotamia. Saladin was outside the city and constantly raided the besiegers. The crusader troops suffered from disease and heat. The arrival of new forces, and especially Richard, inspired the crusaders to more energetic fighting. Undermines were dug, siege towers were built ... Finally, in July 1191, the fortress was taken.
The usual strife prevented the crusaders from developing success in the east. A dispute arose over the candidacy of the new king of Jerusalem. Philip supported the hero of the defense of Tyre, Conrad of Montferatt, Richard played for Guido Lusignan. There were problems with the division of production. The episode with Leopold of Austria was evidence of fierce contradictions. He hoisted his banner over one of the towers of Acre, and Richard ordered it to be torn down. Then miraculously managed to avoid a bloody clash of Christians among themselves. Philip, dissatisfied and irritated by the actions of Richard, and simply considered his mission accomplished, departed for France. The English king remained the sole leader of the crusader host. He did not receive full confidence and approval for his actions. His relationship with Saladin was inconsistent. The Sultan was distinguished by great political tact and many truly chivalrous qualities that even Europeans appreciated in him. He willingly negotiated, but when Richard was nice to the enemy, he was suspected of treason. When he took more drastic steps, the Christians also had every reason to be dissatisfied. So, after the capture of Acre, the knights presented Saladin with excessively difficult conditions for him to ransom the Muslim hostages: the return of all the occupied territories, money, the Tree of the Cross ... Saladin hesitated. Then the enraged Richard ordered the death of two thousand Muslims - an action that horrified their fellow believers. In response, the Sultan ordered the death of the Christian captives.
From Acre, Richard moved not to Jerusalem, but to Jaffa. This path was very difficult. Saladin constantly disturbed the knightly columns. A great battle took place at Arzuf. Here Richard showed himself as an amazingly brave warrior and a good commander. The knights utterly defeated the numerically superior enemy. But the king failed to take advantage of the results of this victory. The English monarch and the sultan in 1192 made peace, which did not at all meet the goals of the campaign. Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Muslims, although it was open to peaceful Christians - pilgrims. Only a narrow coastal strip remained in the hands of the crusaders, starting north of Tire and reaching Jaffa. Richard, returning home, was captured in Austria by Leopold, who held a grudge against him, and spent two years in prison.
The Fourth Crusade clearly showed what goals the crusader army actually pursues and what its Christian piety is worth. No wonder Pope John Paul II had to apologize relatively recently to the Patriarch of Constantinople for the actions of the knights in the distant 13th century.
The initiator of the next campaign was the active Pope Innocent III. In 1198, he began to agitate Western sovereigns and feudal lords to go again to liberate the Holy Sepulcher. The powerful monarchs of England and France this time ignored Innocent's proposal, but several feudal lords nevertheless decided to take part in the campaign. These were Thibaut of Champagne, Boniface, Margrave of Montferatt, Simon de Montfort, Baudouin of Flanders and others.
The crusaders agreed with the pope that the army should first go not to Syria and Palestine, but to Egypt, from where the Muslim world drew its strength. Since the knights did not have a large fleet, they turned to the leading maritime power of that time - the Venetian Republic. From the very beginning of the crusades, the rich merchant cities of Italy took an active part in their organization. The Genoese, Pisans and Venetians transported supplies and people, being interested not only in a specific reward for these services, but also in strengthening their influence in the Eastern Mediterranean to the detriment of the interests of competitors: the Arabs and Byzantium. In 1201, the elderly (he was over 90 years old!) Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo promised to transport 25,000 crusaders to Egypt and bring them supplies for 85,000 marks and half of the future booty for three years. In May of the same year, Boniface of Montferatt, a practical and cynical man, became the leader of the crusaders. He and Dandolo soon pushed Pope Innocent out of the leadership of the campaign and focused on their own interests, different from the original goals of the campaign.
The crusaders gathered in a camp on the island of Lido, a few kilometers from Venice. It quickly became clear that the crusaders did not have enough money to pay for food. Then the Doge agreed with Boniface that the soldiers of Christ would pay Venice a favor - they would capture the rich city of Zadar on the Dalmatian coast, which then belonged to Hungary. Only a few knew about the agreement. All the crusaders were put on ships in the autumn of 1202, and a month later they landed not at Egypt, but at Zadar, which the irritated knights easily took.
The Byzantine prince Alexei Angel arrived at the knights. His father Isaac, who was in alliance with the German emperor, was shortly before that deposed and blinded by Alexei III Comnenus. The prince managed to escape, and now he asked for help from the crusaders. And for this he promised a rich reward, assistance in the campaign to the Holy Land and, finally, the restoration of the unity of the Greek and Roman Christian churches. So there was a reason to go to Constantinople. This idea was actively supported by Boniface and Dandolo. The Venetians had a grudge against the Byzantines for a long time. In trade and maritime relations, they were stronger and had great privileges in Constantinople for a long time, but more and more often misunderstandings arose between the Venetian merchants and the emperor, which cost the Italians great losses.
On June 23, 1203, the crusaders arrived at the Bosporus and landed on the Asian coast, near Chalcedon. Then they crossed over to Galata and made a fortified camp here. The Venetian ships, having broken through the famous chain that blocked the entrance, broke into the Golden Horn Bay. By this time, the knightly host numbered about 40 thousand people, but due to illness, desertion and military losses, only about 15 thousand participated in the final division of booty.
Actually, there was no siege as such - all actions were concentrated on a relatively small section of the city fortifications. The walls seemed absolutely impregnable. Over the past seven centuries, they have repeatedly defended the city from the Huns, Bulgarians, Slavs, Arabs and Turks, whose armies greatly outnumbered the forces with which they besieged Dandolo and Boniface. But Constantinople did not have a sufficient number of defenders. In addition, in July, Alexei III fled the capital. Isaac returned to the throne. He and his son were in no hurry to fulfill their obligations to the Latins. The same behaved more and more impudently towards the locals, causing general hatred. It ended with the fact that the power in the capital in January 1204 was seized by an ardent opponent of the crusaders Alexei Duka, Alexei Angel was thrown into prison and killed. When asked by Western feudal lords whether the new emperor was going to pay the amount promised by his predecessors, he refused. The crusaders had another pretext for the capture of Constantinople.
In March, Boniface of Montferatt and Dandolo drew up a detailed plan of action, from which they did not deviate a single step. According to the agreement, the knights were to take Constantinople by storm and establish Latin rule in it. The city was to be plundered and all booty amicably divided between Venice and the French. The territory of the country was divided between them and the newly elected Latin emperor. The decisive assault began on 9 April. Constantinople was taken on April 12, 1204. This date can be considered the true end of the Byzantine Empire, although it was formally restored after sixty years, after which it existed for another two centuries.
The crusaders staged a three-day bloody orgy in Constantinople. They killed, robbed, raped. Eyewitnesses of the events, even from the side of the Latins, described these three days with horror. The knights burned libraries, destroyed priceless works of art, took out shrines from churches, did not spare either the elderly or children. And all this happened in a Christian city, as part of the Fourth Crusade, declared to fight the "infidels"! On the territory of Byzantium, the Latin Empire was formed.
During the entire time of the Fourth Crusade, in fact, only small detachments of those leaders who at one time refused to join the crusaders in Venice arrived in the Holy Land from Europe. But these few hundred knights could do little to help their co-religionists. Their army made several minor punitive expeditions against the Muslim emir in the vicinity of Sidon, and the fleet sacked the Egyptian city of Fuwu in the Nile Delta. As a result of these actions, in September 1204, a peace treaty was signed for a period of six years: the Christians were returned to Jaffa, taken from them in 1197, half of the territory of Sidon, part of the city of Nazareth. In general, the Fourth Campaign only weakened the Christian East. The emerging Latin Empire divided forces: Constantinople absorbed part of the subsidies intended for the Holy Land, attracted soldiers who could go to Syria.
In our opinion, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the story of the children's crusade was attributed to the time of Pope Innocent III mentioned above. His personality is highly curious. The pope was distinguished by indomitable energy, ambition, apparently, a sincere conviction that he was doing a just cause, devotion to the Catholic Church. During his time on the papal throne, Innocent III organized many large-scale events. He interfered in the affairs of sovereigns throughout Europe, his hands reached out to England, the Baltic states, Galicia ... The pope considered his main goal to consolidate the dominion of the popes over Europe.
Innocent III (his name before the adoption of the tiara by Giovanni-Lothair Conti) succeeded Celestine III on the papal throne on January 8, 1198. It is curious that before that he was not even a bishop, he was only 38 years old, but the cardinals already considered him the best contender for the Holy See.
The pope immediately began to deal with the enemies of the throne. To begin with, he dealt with the Roman aristocrats, while using the full support of the ordinary urban population, among whom he was unusually popular. Then Innocent turned to Italian affairs, where the Germans traditionally fought with him for influence. German barons, planted in different cities of the Apennine Peninsula by Emperor Henry VI, were forced to leave the Papal States. The Florentine cities formed an independent union, but papal sympathies were strong there too. Less than a year later, the Papal States, under the leadership of Innocent III, reached the greatest extent in all previous history. After Italy came the turn of the rest of Europe. As the historian N. Osokin writes: “For Innocent, in the whole West there was no person too poor, too insignificant, and, conversely, too influential a ruler.” That is why he boldly entered into confrontation with the most powerful sovereigns, making extensive use of the moods in the lower classes, exploiting their religiosity, and, sometimes, ignorance and militancy.
In the fulfillment of his plans in relation to the rulers of contemporary Europe, Innocent met with strong resistance. Influence in Germany, England, France, Leon (one of the Spanish kingdoms), Portugal, and finally, the rebellious Languedoc (a region in southern France), the pope strengthened after a hard struggle with politicians and the spirit of national identity.
In Germany, there was complete confusion: there was a struggle for the imperial throne. The hopes of the parties were also connected with the actions of Innocent III, much depended on which of the three applicants he would support: Philip Hohenstaufen, Friedrich Hohenstaufen or Otto IV, Duke of Brunswick, leader of the Welf party. Philip and Otto were elected to the throne by the German princes almost simultaneously, each with his own party. A war broke out between rivals. At first, no attention was paid to the direct heir, the son of the last emperor, Frederick. Innocent, after much deliberation, spoke out in favor of Otto, against whom almost all of central and southern Germany protested. His opponents sent a rather harsh protest to the pope. “Perhaps the holy curia,” wrote the authors of this document, “in her parental tenderness considers us an addition to the Roman Empire. If so, then we cannot but declare the injustice of all this ... ”But the Curia thought exactly that, so Innokenty continued to defend his point of view. In favor of Philip, his namesake spoke - the French king, who had just been humiliated by the pontiff, which will be discussed below. The situation was resolved in favor of Otto rather unexpectedly. On June 23, 1208, Philip Hohenstaufen was killed by his personal enemy - one of the German feudal lords. Otto, however, did not live up to the pope's hopes. In 1210, he tried to capture the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which included a significant part of the Apennine Peninsula, and was excommunicated. This once again showed that the differences between the pontificate and the Holy Roman Empire are systemic. Whoever came to power in the empire, he invariably came into conflict with the pope over the right to interfere in the affairs of the church in his country and claims to certain disputed territories.
Much more harshly, Innocent III put in place the recalcitrant English monarch, who was the notorious John the Landless, a king who did not want to share his power with anyone, even with the Catholic Church. In 1205, John attempted to reverse the papal approval of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the English Church. As a result, Innocent imposed an interdict on England. For a medieval person, the cessation of all rituals and celebrations, the closure of temples was a disaster. For some time the English king fought: he ordered to seize, expel, hang and cut those clerics who obeyed the interdict. He confiscated their estates, encouraged robbery, but achieved only that he further revolted the population of the country. In 1212, Innocent removed John from the throne and freed the English feudal lords from the vassal oath to their king. The anger of the monarch was replaced by servility. He gave up England in favor of Rome and received it back from the pope with the obligation of a large annual tribute.
The pope did not limit himself to England and Germany. It was under Innokenty that the conquests of the Teutonic Order began in the territory of the settlement of the Prussians and the Order of the Sword-bearers in the lands of the Livs. Both in Prussia and in Livonia, the crusades were accompanied by merciless devastation of the lands. The pope also fought for strengthening his influence in Spain.
One of the strongest opponents of Innocent at one time was the outstanding French monarch Philip II Augustus. Then came the time of the power of royal power, there was a process of unification of the French lands. Philip II successfully fought the British for the vast territories in France that he had ceded under Eleanor of Aquitaine, got into his hands the possessions of the feudal lords who went on crusades to the east, and established relations with the cities that he brought out of the power of the barons. Much has been done in the field of administrative and economic structure of the state. Such a king was naturally opposed to Rome having a great deal of influence in French affairs. The reason for the clash between Philip and Innocent was the marriage problems of the king. The latter did not love his wife Ingeborg, the sister of the Danish King Knut. When Pope Celestine III refused Philip's request for a divorce, the king ordered Ingeborg to be locked up in a monastery, and he married the daughter of one of the Tyrolean princes. Having come to power, Innocent resolutely led the fight for the fulfillment of the papal order. In January 1200, the French clergy gathered for a council in Vienne. The legate of the pope announced that France was committed to excommunication for the sins of her king. Philip II Augustus was forced to yield. In 1202 the excommunication was lifted. It is said that the king bitterly said: "How happy Saladin is that he does not have a pope." Ingeborg was returned to court. But the French monarch harbored a hatred of Rome and was certainly not a reliable subject of the curia.
Innocent III had certain hopes for establishing his influence in Byzantium. It was during the reign of this pontiff that the bloody Fourth Crusade was organized, during which the crusaders defeated Constantinople. However, the pope was dissatisfied with their cruelty. Having learned about the wild atrocities of the French and Venetians, he punished the perpetrators with an excommunication bull. But Innocent himself became the organizer of the no less bloody Albigensian campaign in the south of France, during which it was with his permission that the Inquisition began to operate. It is curious that King Philip did not personally participate in the wars against heretics. The battles with the Albigensians at the first stage were fought, in fact, by Rome and the crusading army recruited by it. It is unlikely that the French king was delighted with the fact that a foreign army was in charge of his kingdom.
Thus, the crusade of children, allegedly taking place in 1212, may be most directly related to the history of Innocent's struggle with the German and French rulers. We are again dealing with some churchly called, organized and probably armed groups that gather in Germany and France and march along the roads of the domains of disobedient monarchs. Their goals in this case can be divided into formal and actual. Just as the participants of the Fourth Crusade went to Egypt, and sailed to Dalmatia, the participants of the "children's" campaign went to the Holy Land, and reached Marseilles. And, perhaps, both the French and the Germans. The French even carried a letter addressed to Philip II Augustus. What was in this document, what did the legates who secretly directed the campaign want to achieve? Speeches of the king's regular forces in the Middle East? Their participation in the Albigensian War? Full subordination of the king to the pope? Or maybe the monarch was preparing another attempt to remove the church from solving the state problems of France, and the procession of many thousands served as a preventive measure that kept him from this step? After all, since the pontiff can place colossal masses of commoners under his banner (in addition to the main part of the "children's army", local formations marched along the roads of France), is it possible to fight Rome?
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From the book of 100 forbidden books: censored history of world literature. Book 1 the author Sowa Don B800 years ago, in 1212, Europe went mad. An unarmed army of children moved to distant Jerusalem to get the Holy Sepulcher. Nothing like this has happened in the world before or since.
Unless something similar, like a relapse of a long-standing disease, took place in the Third Reich, when the Hitler Youth was created. However, in Nazi Germany, children were mobilized by the state, given weapons and given clear military objectives. The children of 1212 organized themselves and went to Jerusalem unarmed.
Europe at that time was one big bone of contention. Churchmen and large feudal lords lived in luxury in it, ordinary people died of hunger, and between those and others, the landless nobility was supplemented with water and bread (only the eldest sons in the family had the right to inherit the land). In addition, Europe was then experiencing an “urban revolution” and a natural “baby boom”. The darkness of a motley people wandered around idle, without a king in their heads and hope for the best.
The fermentation of minds began. Like mushrooms after rain, heretical sects arose, in response to which the Church established the Inquisition. The cities smelled of roasted flesh, but torture and execution only did half the job. And now Pope Urban II announces that all troubles occur for a simple and easily eliminated reason - the Holy Sepulcher and the holy land of Jerusalem are in the hands of the infidels. In general, everyone to the East - to fight the Muslims!
So two birds with one stone were killed at once. The hungry knights went and got themselves land and gold, and the commoners let off steam. However, the "prosperity" did not last long. Soon the Muslims kicked the crusaders out of Jerusalem, and Europe again plunged into despondency. Now the poor have already completely understood that there is nowhere to expect happiness from. The poor children were especially hard hit by the hardships and despair.
In 1212, two juvenile fanatics are announced in France and Germany, who proclaim that universal happiness will come when innocent children take the Holy Sepulcher from Muslims. The baby must proceed to the Mediterranean Sea, and its waters will part, opening a direct path to Palestine. It is interesting that these two preachers repeated each other almost word for word, as if in some way they coordinated their speeches.
Let's talk about the French boy first. He became famous in Paris in May of the aforementioned 1212 with his loud statement that Christ had given him a wonderful letter through a poor old man. In it, the children of France were ordered to go to Jerusalem and take the Holy Sepulcher without shedding blood. If you do this, you will receive all the blessings of the world, he said.
The boy was 12 years old. His name was Etienne. Before receiving the letter from the mysterious old man, he was a cowherd. His only difference from many other village children is a severe mental disorder. Perhaps it was thanks to his crazy head that he just possessed that hot eloquence that literally fascinated people. Children listened to his speeches and adored him with a passionate passion.
Etienne gathered hundreds of listeners in the squares and crossroads. Gradually, many of them remained with their idol, forgetting their parents, games and worries in their father's house. Mothers and fathers tried to reason with them, but in vain. Over time, it became considered shameful to dare their offspring from a holy goal.
Finally, in the summer, Étienne issued a call to advance. The children sewed colorful crosses on their clothes, took knapsacks and set off. In total, 30,000 boys and girls from 6 to 12 years old went. It was an amazing sight, described by many chroniclers. Under the flags with the image of Christ and the Virgin, a real juvenile army moved.
They ate alms. From city to city they were joined by peasants, vagabonds, priests, monks, and thieves. Arriving in Marseille, everyone was inspired to a state of hysteria. Now Etienne will throw up his hands, say a prayer, and the sea will expose its bottom. But the waves continued to rhythmically beat against the shore.
Pale, thin, emaciated children began to disperse, but then two cunning shipowners appeared on the pier. They offered to transport the poor fellows across the sea, assuring them of their Christian disinterestedness. The children boarded seven ships and sailed towards the holy feat. Near the coast of Sardinia, two ships capsized and all who were on them drowned. The other five ships reached Egypt, and there the young crusaders were sold by the shipowners into slavery to the "infidels."
In the same days, events occurred in Germany that were exactly similar to those in France. Twenty-five thousand boys and girls, dressed in clothes with sewn crosses, advanced through Cologne to Italy. They were led by the peasant son Nicholas, who was not even ten years old. He, like Etienne, demonstrated childish, simply demonic charisma and fell in love with himself "at first sight."
He did not have a written order from the highest church hierarchs, and it was useless. After all, from time to time an angel appeared to him, telling him where and why to go. Nicholas led his army through the Alps. Along the way, two-thirds of the children could not stand the cold and the severity of the transition - they died. Upon arrival in Genoa, the remaining crusaders prepared to see a miracle with sea waters. Needless to say, Nicholas suffered the same failure as Etienne.
The difference between the French and German events was that in the second case, the shipowners did not come to "help". Something else happened. Many children were kidnapped by pirates without deceit and empty promises. The surviving part of the army went back to Germany through the Alps, but almost no one reached. The roads were then littered with children's corpses.
Only a handful of crusaders, led by Nicholas, boarded two ships and departed for Palestine. According to some accounts, Nikolos subsequently fought the Muslims in the ranks of the Fifth Crusade. Other sources testify that none of the children made it to Jerusalem.
Chroniclers mention the Children's Crusades 51 times in their chronicles. However, modern Europe is bashfully silent about these follies. After all, its culture was born in such a nightmarish way, the facade of which is generously decorated today with humanistic postulates.
