Children's+Crusade



The Children's crusade is one of the most unusual events that had happened in the Medieval England. It took place shortly after the Fourth Crusade. By that time the Christians had gained no success and the belief of crusading was slowly fading. However, the Children's Crusade somehow put some Christian belief back into crusading. In 1212, a group from France and a group from Germany set off on a crusade to the Holy Land. It was normal for armies to battle the Muslims, but this time something was majorly different. The two groups actually contained all young children. The kids were not scared at all and thought that they would be protected by God and he would guide them safely to the Holy Land.

The leader of the pack was Stephen of Cloyes. We don't know that much about him other than he was 12 years of age, a shepherd, and had a peasant's background. In May of 1212, Stephen went to the court of King Philip of France and explained to him that he had recieved a letter from Christ ordering him to organize a crusade to the Holy Land and capture Jerusalem. King Philip didn't believe him, obviously, and told him to go away. That didn't bother Stephen at all. He still went around teaching and gathering children for this crusade. He would tell his followers that God would be protecting them and that they would cross the Mediterranean but the artig of the water.

By June of 1212, Stephen had about 30,000 children gathered to join him in this crusade. They marched through France and had adults cheering for them on their journey. They shone with innocene and were determined for success. The Children's Cursade was actually never an official crusade because it was never blessed by the pope. In fact, that didn't even stop the children either. The cursade was doomed to failure because most of the kids had never put forth that much effort in walking such an intense journey. From Vendome to Marseilles, many children had dropped out because it was just too rigorous for them. Obviously, the Mediterranean did not part, so they had go travel across by boat. When the children boarded seven boats in Marseilles, that had been the last anyone had seen or heard of them.

It is said that many years after a priest said he had some of the survivors of the Children's Crusade and those kids were now adults. He said that two out of the seven boats sank and the rest were captured by pirates. The children were then sold into slavery. The whites were considered to be a valuable prize in Algerian and Egyptian slave markets.