THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE (1212 A.D.)

[1Sidenote: [1212 A.D.]]

2Some of the best witnesses for the history of the Middle Ages affirm that, seduced by the preaching of fanatics, the children of France and Germany, about the year 1212, thought themselves authorised by heaven to attempt the rescue of the Sepulchre, and ran about the country, crying, “Lord Jesus Christ, restore thy cross to us.” Boys and girls stole from their homes, “no bolts, no bars, no fear of fathers or love of mothers, could hold them back,” and the number of youthful converts was thirty thousand. They were organised by some fanatical wretches, one of whom was taken and hanged at Cologne. The children drove down France, crossed the Alps, and those who survived thirst, hunger, and heat, presented themselves at the gates of the seaports of Italy and the south of France.

3Many were driven back to their homes; but seven large ships full of them went from Marseilles; two of the vessels were wrecked on the isle of St. Peter, the rest of the ships went to Bougie and Alexandria, and the masters sold the children to slavery. These singular events are mentioned by four contemporary writers. (1) Alberic, monk of Trois Fontaines, in his chronicle. (2) Godfrey of St. Pantaleon, in his annals. The editor cites in his margin a Belgic chronicle as a testimony. (3) Sicard, bishop of Cremona. (4) M. Paris.

4Roger Bacon, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, thus speaks of the Crusade of Children: “_Forsan vidistis aut audistis pro certo quod pueri de regno Franciæ semel occurrebant in infinita multitudine post quondam malignum hominem, ita quod nec a patribus, nec a matribus, nec amicis poterant detineri, et positi sunt in navibus et Saracenis redditi, et non sunt adhuc 64 anni._” Honest Fuller says: “This crusade was done by the instinct of the devil, who, as it were, desired a cordial of children’s blood, to comfort his weak stomach, long cloyed with murdering of men.”[c]

5[Illustration: A GERMAN NOBLE, THIRTEENTH CENTURY]

6This expedition beyond the seas, undertaken about 1212, and composed entirely of children, if not one of the most striking events of the Crusades, certainly appears not one of the least extraordinary. Whoever is acquainted with the taste of the Middle Ages for the marvellous, and has only read the incomplete account of the modern historians of the Crusades, is at first tempted to range this expedition among fabulous adventures; and to procure it any credit, it is necessary to produce evidences worthy of our confidence.

7With regard to the date, contemporary historians all place this crusade under the year 1212, or 1213 at the latest. It is only by an error very easy to be reconciled, that others advance it twelve years, or put it back ten. As to the places that witnessed the birth and growth of such an enterprise, it appears that the crusaders belonged to two nations, and formed two troops, which followed different routes; one, leaving Germany, traversed Saxony and the Alps and arrived on the shores of the Adriatic Sea; France furnished the others, who, after collecting in the environs of Paris, crossed Burgundy, and arrived at Marseilles, the place of embarkation. Prestiges, fanaticism, the announcement of prodigies, were all employed to rouse the youth of these countries and put them in motion.

8It was reported, according to Vincent de Beauvais, that the Old Man of the Mountain, who was accustomed to educate _arsacides_ from the tenderest age, detained two clerks captives, and would only grant them their liberty upon condition that they brought him back some young boys from France. The opinion then was, that these children, deceived by false visions, and seduced by the promises of these two clerks, marked themselves with the sign of the cross.

9The promoter of the crusade in Germany was a certain Nicholas, a German by nation. “This multitude of children,” says Bezarre, “were persuaded by the help of a false revelation, that the drought would be so great that year that the abysses of the sea would be dry; and they went to Genoa, with the intention of passing over to Jerusalem, across the arid bed of the Mediterranean.” The composition of these troops corresponded with the means employed to seduce them. There were children of all ages and conditions, and of both sexes; some of them were not more than twelve years old; they set out from villages and towns, without leaders, without guides, without provisions, and with empty purses.

10It was in vain their parents or friends thought to dissuade them by showing them the folly of such an expedition; the captivity to which they condemned them redoubled their ardour; breaking through doors, or opening themselves passages through walls, they succeeded in escaping, and went to rejoin their respective bands. If they were questioned upon the object of their voyage, they answered that they were going to visit the holy places.

11Although a pilgrimage commenced under such auspices, and stained with all sorts of excesses, must have been an object of scandal rather than of edification, there were people senseless enough to see in it an act of the all-powerful God; men and women quitted their houses and their lands to join these vagabond troops, believing they pursued the way of salvation; others furnished them with money and food, thinking they aided souls inspired by God, and guided by sentiments of divine piety.

12The pope, when informed of their proceedings, exclaimed, with a groan: “These children reproach us with being buried in sleep, whilst they are flying to the defence of the Holy Land.” If some few of the clergy, endowed with a little foresight, openly blamed this expedition, their censures were at once attributed to motives of avarice and incredulity; and, in order to avoid public contempt, wisdom and prudence were condemned to silence.

13The event, however, proved that all which man undertakes without employing the balance of reason and earnest reflection, does not come to a fortunate issue; “for soon,” says Bishop Sicard, “this multitude entirely disappeared: _quasi evanuit universa_.” But we must carefully distinguish between the fate of the German and that of the French crusaders, although a part of the latter directed their course towards Italy.

14It required nothing beyond wearing the cross to be admitted into the crusade; if the watchful care of princes and prelates in expeditions directed by ecclesiastical and secular power could not succeed in excluding from them men of bad morals, what sort of people must have been mixed with a host got together without the least care, and under the eye of no superior intelligence, the greater part of whom fled, like the prodigal son, from the paternal dwelling, in order to give themselves up, without restraint, to their vicious inclinations?

15The account of Godfrey the Monk, therefore, does not at all astonish us when he says that thieves insinuated themselves among the German pilgrims, and disappeared after having plundered them of their baggage and the gifts the faithful had bestowed upon them. One of these thieves, being recognised at Cologne, ended his days on the rack.

16To this first misfortune a crowd of evils quickly succeeded, the necessary result of the want of foresight of the crusaders. The fatigue of a long journey, heat, disease, and want, swept away a great number of them. Of those who arrived in Italy, some, dispersing themselves over the country, and plundered by the inhabitants, were reduced to servitude; others, to the amount of seven thousand, presented themselves before Genoa.

17At first the senate gave them permission to remain six or seven days in the city; but reflecting afterwards upon the folly of the expedition, fearing that such a multitude would produce famine, and, above all, apprehending that Frederick, who was then in a state of rebellion against the holy see and at war with Genoa, might take advantage of the circumstance to excite a tumult, they ordered the crusaders to depart from the city.

18Some, finding their error, turned back towards their own country again; and these crusaders, who had been seen advancing in numerous troops, and singing animating songs, returned singly, robbed of everything, walking barefooted, undergoing the pangs of hunger, and subjected to the scoffs and derision of the population of the cities and countries they passed through; it is not to be wondered at, that in such circumstances many young girls lost the chastity which had been their ornament in their homes.

19The crusaders from France experienced a nearly similar fate; a very slender portion of them returned; the rest either perished in the waves or became an object of speculation for two Marseilles merchants. Hugh Ferrers and William Porcus, so were they named, carried on a trade with the Saracens, of which the sale of young boys formed a considerable branch. No opportunity for an advantageous speculation could be more favourable; they offered to transport to the East all the pilgrims who arrived at Marseilles, without any kind of charge for the voyage; assigning piety as the motive for this act of generosity. This proposition was joyfully accepted; and seven vessels, laden with these pilgrims, set sail for the coast of Syria. At the end of two days, when the ships were off the Isle of St.

20Peter, near the Rock of the Recluse, a violent tempest arose, and the sea swallowed up two of them, with all the passengers on board. The other five arrived at Bougie and Alexandria, and the young crusaders were all sold to the Saracens or to slave-merchants. The caliph bought forty of them, all of whom were in orders, and caused them to be brought up with great care in a place set apart for the purpose; twelve of the others perished as martyrs, being unwilling to renounce their religion. None of the clerks purchased by the caliph, according to the account of one of them who afterwards obtained his liberty, embraced the worship of Mohammed; all faithful to the religion of their fathers, practised it constantly in tears in slavery.

21Hugh and William, having at a later period formed the project of assassinating Frederick, were discovered, and perished in an ignominious manner, with three Saracens, their accomplices, receiving, in this miserable end, the wages due to their treachery.

22Pope Gregory IX afterwards caused a church to be built in the island of St. Peter, in honour of those who were shipwrecked, and instituted twelve canonships to provide for the duties of it. In the time of Alberic the spot was still pointed out where the bodies cast up by the waves were buried. As for the crusaders who survived so many calamities, and remained in Europe, with the exception of some old and infirm persons, the pope would not release them from their vows; they were obliged either to perform the pilgrimage at a maturer age, or to redeem it by alms.

23Such was the issue of this crusade, so justly designated by two chronicles, _expeditio nugatoria, expeditio derisoria_.

24Two facts strike us as extraordinary in this account; the condition attached by the Old Man of the Mountain to the liberty of the clerk of whom Vincent de Beauvais speaks, and the trade in children carried on by the merchants of Marseilles. Upon the first point we can offer nothing but the opinion received among the nations of the West. It was generally believed in the thirteenth century, that the Old Man of the Mountain kept up a connection with Christian Europe; several princes were even accused of having had recourse to the daggers of his Assassins to get rid of their enemies. Frederick received ambassadors from him in Sicily.

25Roger Bacon complains bitterly of the fascinations secretly employed by the Saracens to seduce the young servants of Christ; the name of Assassins had already passed into the vulgar tongue in the thirteenth century, and was the object of general terror. In spite, then, of the opinion of some critics, a more extended examination is necessary, before we reject the account of Vincent de Beauvais. As to the trade in young boys, that is not at all a new fact; many traces of it are found much anterior to this period. The Greeks and Venetians practised it openly enough.

26Pope Zacharias repurchased, in 748, many Christian slaves, who had been taken away from Rome by Venetian merchants; the people of Verdun, as witnessed by Liutprand, were about to sell to the Arabs of Spain some young boys they had mutilated, and who were to serve as guards to the women of seraglios. Besides, the fate of the young crusaders who embarked at Marseilles, and found degradation and slavery instead of the sacred soil promised to their blind zeal, is attested by two contemporary writers, worthy of perfect confidence: Thomas de Champré and Roger Bacon.[e]