Conventional wisdom question: What do you know about the Children's Crusade during the Middle Ages?

Question

Please do NOT STUDY UP on this question before answering!!!!

I'm asking WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW about this question -- not what you can easily find on Wikipedia, Snopes.com, etc.

No, I want to know what -- if anything -- you know about what has been called the "Children's Crusade" undertaken during the Middle Ages against Islamic occupation of the Holy Land.

I am using this sampling of "What the average person knows" about various topics in a series of articles I'm writing on the subject of "Conventional Wisdom." I'm asking on this forum not only because it is a matter of religious history, I find that this forum has much better traffic than the history forum.

Answer 1

It was a scam.  When the kids got to their destination, they were sold into slavery.  

Answer 2

I wasn't alive then so its all hearsay to me.

Answer 3

I don't know much about the history of it. What I do know is that the Children's Crusade was an effort undertaken by a large group of (christian, I suppose) very young people, children and adolescents, who attempted to make it from their homes in Europe across to Jeruselam as a pilgrimage. Unlike the military crusades, they had no intention of actually fighting the muslims who occupied the region, merely of making this pilgrimage. Like all the crusades past about the second or third one, it was a failure and hardly any, if any, of the kids actually made it all the way to the city (the rest either succumbing to the hazards of travel or being killed by the muslims).

Now I'll go look it up on Wikipedia to make sure I've got that right.

*looks it up*

It looks like most of what I described above is actually an old version of what took place, and that modern historians think the details differed considerably. I hadn't read about the subject for some time, so I guess the place where I read it before merely had the old version of the story. Even then, I still got some of the details wrong anyway.

Answer 4

I know that a boy thought he had visions from God teling him to take an army of children to Jerusalem and they would have angelic aid in wresting the Holy Land from the Muslim infidel. I know the church encouraged this nonsense and I know many of the "army" ended up enslaved along the way. But it got rid of a lot of excess poor males, which was the purpose.

Answer 5

This "crusade" was even goofier than most. Less people died, so perhaps that is a good point, since the children were mostly enslaved and not killed.

Answer 6

Umm that it sucked *** for children. Midevil times. Didnt they attempt to march them from england to jerusalem and they though god would part the red sea like he did for the jews in egypt? Most of them died from disease and starvation.

Answer 7

A group of children followed a charismatic leader who convinced them to go fight in the crusades.

Most died on the way there.  

Okay, now I will go check if I remember correctly...

Answer 8

Ok...digging deep into my catholic education that was sooooo long ago.

But I believe the Children's Crusade began in France, when a  boy claimed to have had a vision and that Jesus had told him to gather a crusade of boys. He went around France preaching and gathering boys for the crusade. They set out, but never made it to the Holy Land. Many died from disease or starvation. That's all I can remember

Answer 9

*** g89 8/8 p. 24 Part 15—1095-1453 C.E.—Resorting to the Sword ***

Fine Christian Warfare?

  Were the Crusades the fine warfare Christians were instructed to wage?—2 Corinthians 10:3, 4; 1 Timothy 1:18.

  The First Crusade (1096-99) resulted in the recapture of Jerusalem and the establishment of four Latin states in the East: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli. An authority quoted by historian H. G. Wells says of the capture of Jerusalem: “The slaughter was terrible; the blood of the conquered ran down the streets, until men splashed in blood as they rode. At nightfall, ‘sobbing for excess of joy,’ the crusaders came to the Sepulchre from their treading of the winepress, and put their blood-stained hands together in prayer.”

  The Second Crusade (1147-49) was initiated because of the loss of the County of Edessa to Syrian Muslims in 1144; it ended when the Muslims successfully turned back Christendom’s “infidels.”

  The Third Crusade (1189-92), undertaken after the Muslims retook Jerusalem, had as one of its leaders Richard I, “the Lionhearted,” of England. It soon “disintegrated,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, “through attrition, quarreling, and lack of cooperation.”

  The Fourth Crusade (1202-4) was diverted for lack of funds from Egypt to Constantinople; material assistance was promised in return for helping enthrone Alexius, an exiled Byzantine pretender to the crown. “The [resulting] pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders is something that the Orthodox East has never forgotten or forgiven,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, adding: “If any single date is to be cited for the firm establishment of the schism, the most appropriate—at any rate from a psychological standpoint—is the year 1204.”

  The Children’s Crusade (1212) brought death to thousands of German and French children before they even reached their destination.

  The Fifth Crusade (1217-21), the last under papal control, failed because of flawed leadership and clergy interference.

  The Sixth Crusade (1228-29) was led by Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whom Pope Gregory IX had previously excommunicated.

  The Seventh and Eighth Crusades (1248-54 and 1270-72) were led by Louis IX of France but collapsed after his death in North Africa.

*** w90 2/1 p. 17 par. 13 God’s Judgment Against “the Man of Lawlessness” ***

13 For example, from the 11th to the 13th century, the clergy of Christendom introduced the Crusades. These resulted in horrible bloodshed and pillage in the name of God and of Christ. Hundreds of thousands were killed. The Crusades included the senseless slaughter of thousands of children who were induced to participate in the Children’s Crusade of the year 1212.

I had to check it out and this is what I found. I had no idea this took place.

Answer 10

The inspiration for the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

A German monk whipped up the masses with religious fervour and led a crusade mostly made of children. It was predictably disastrous and didn't make it past Turkey.

Answer 11

according to wikipedia, the "children's Crusade" happened under the order of the Pope Barbarosa. ...

Im bullshitting you. I know something about the crusades, but i do not know how to separate the numerous ones. I know that most of them ended up as slaves before they even got to the destination, sold by the army for food. And then i think.. . that they didnt even get to the middle east, but that they attacked the easter orthodox church in the balkans.

I dont know.

Answer 12

It was a popular movement, that the mainstream Church tried to discourage.

They didn't think they would actually have to fight, they believed that once this hoard of children reached the Holy Land their innocence and faith would bring about some sort of miracle.

Very few if any of them reached Jerusalem. The ones who boarded ships bound to the Holy Land were sold into slavery as s*x toys for Arabs.  

Answer 13

I know that in, I believe it was the early 1200's, a group of delusional young children decided that they could do a better job of taking the holy land back from Islam.  Not many of them made it, due to disease, boredom, etc.  and the ones that did got turned into slaves, predictably.  Anything I missed?