The People's Crusade of 1096

The People’s Crusade of 1096 was a popular religious movement that preceded the First Crusade and that ended in tragedy for most of its participants. The People’s Crusade was organized and led by a French hermit named Peter the Hermit and a German knight named Walter Sans-Avoir, and it attracted a diverse following of peasants, townspeople, minor clergy, and even women and children. The People’s Crusade set out from France and Germany in the spring of 1096, and it arrived in Asia Minor later that year, where it was massacred by the Seljuk Turks. The People’s Crusade was a major episode of the First Crusade, and it has been a subject of much historical and literary treatment.

The standard English-language treatment is Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading” (1986). The Gesta Francorum of Peter Tudebode and the Historia of Albert of Aachen are the contemporary accounts, with the modern edition in Susan B. Edgington and Benjamin Kedar.

The Origins of the Movement

The origins of the People’s Crusade are rooted in the popular response to Pope Urban II’s call to crusade at Clermont in November 1095. The pope’s call was directed primarily at the knightly class, but the popular response to the call was widespread, and the idea of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land appealed to Christians of all social classes. The call to crusade was enthusiastically received in rural and urban areas of France and Germany, and charismatic preachers mobilized the popular response into organized expeditions that preceded the main armies of the First Crusade.

The most famous of the popular preachers was Peter the Hermit (c. 1050–1115), a French hermit who had traveled to the Holy Land as a pilgrim and who had reportedly received a letter from Christ urging him to preach the crusade. Peter preached the Crusade in France and Germany with great success, and he attracted a large following of peasants, townspeople, minor clergy, and even women and children who were eager to join the Crusade but who could not afford to equip themselves as knights. Peter was a charismatic preacher with a gift for mobilizing the popular imagination, and his following grew rapidly in the early months of 1096.

The March of the People’s Crusade

The march of the People’s Crusade began in the spring of 1096, with separate groups of crusaders setting out from different parts of France and Germany. The first group, led by Walter Sans-Avoir, set out from France in March 1096, passed through Germany and Hungary, and arrived in Constantinople in July 1096. The second group, led by Peter the Hermit himself, set out from France in April 1096, passed through Germany (where the crusaders were joined by additional followers, including the Jew-hating priest Folkmar and the nobleman Gottschalk), and arrived in Constantinople in August 1096.

The march of the People’s Crusade was marked by disorder and violence. The crusaders were poorly organized and poorly equipped, and they lived off the land as they marched, often stealing food and supplies from the local populations. The crusaders clashed with Jewish communities along the route, massacring Jews in Speyer, Worms, Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, and Prague. The massacres of Jews in the Rhine valley were a harbinger of the violence that would characterize the Crusade in the East, and they remained a source of controversy and shame in the Jewish and Christian communities for centuries.

The crusaders also clashed with Hungarian authorities as they passed through Hungary, and several of the crusaders were killed in clashes with the Hungarian army. The Byzantine emperor Alexios I was alarmed by the arrival of the People’s Crusade at Constantinople, and he hastily transported the crusaders to Asia Minor to avoid disorder in the capital. The Byzantine authorities supplied the crusaders with food and supplies, and they urged the crusaders to wait for the arrival of the main armies of the First Crusade before engaging the Seljuk Turks.

The End of the People’s Crusade

The end of the People’s Crusade came in the autumn of 1096, when the crusaders encountered the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor. The crusaders were poorly equipped and poorly trained, and they were no match for the Seljuk cavalry. The crusaders were defeated at the Battle of Nicaea in October 1096, and they were massacred at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096. The crusaders were killed or captured by the Seljuk Turks, and only a few survivors managed to escape to Constantinople or to reach the main armies of the First Crusade.

The defeat of the People’s Crusade was a major tragedy, and it illustrated the dangers of unorganized popular movements in the context of medieval warfare. The People’s Crusade was poorly equipped, poorly trained, and poorly led, and it was vulnerable to the attacks of the Seljuk Turks. The defeat also demonstrated the need for organized armies under the command of experienced knights, and it provided a lesson for the organizers of the main armies of the First Crusade.

The Survivors and Their Stories

The survivors of the People’s Crusade included Peter the Hermit himself, who managed to escape from the massacre at Civetot and who joined the main army of the First Crusade at Constantinople in 1097. Peter accompanied the Crusaders in the march to Jerusalem, and he served as a spiritual advisor and preacher to the Crusaders in the Holy Land. Peter returned to Europe in 1099, and he founded a monastery in Huy in Belgium, where he died in 1115.

The survivors of the People’s Crusade also included a group of crusaders who managed to reach the walls of Nicaea before being defeated by the Seljuk Turks. The survivors were rescued by the Byzantine army and transported to Constantinople, where they joined the main army of the First Crusade. The survivors provided valuable intelligence about the Seljuk forces and the terrain of Asia Minor, and they helped the main Crusaders to prepare for the march to Jerusalem.

The Significance of the People’s Crusade

The People’s Crusade is a significant episode of the First Crusade, and it has been the subject of much historical and literary treatment. The People’s Crusade illustrates the popular enthusiasm for the Crusade in medieval Europe, and it shows how the call to crusade mobilized Christians of all social classes in a common cause. The People’s Crusade also illustrates the dangers of unorganized popular movements in the context of medieval warfare, and it provided a lesson for the organizers of the main armies of the First Crusade.

The People’s Crusade is also a significant episode in the history of Jewish-Christian relations. The massacres of Jews in the Rhine valley in 1096 were the first major persecutions of Jews in medieval Europe, and they set a precedent for the later persecutions of Jews in the Crusading movements and beyond. The massacres of 1096 have been a subject of historical and theological debate in the modern era, and they continue to shape the relations between Jewish and Christian communities in the modern world.

The Memory of the People’s Crusade

The memory of the People’s Crusade has been preserved in the literary and historical traditions of the medieval and modern world. The chroniclers of the First Crusade — Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum — describe the People’s Crusade in detail, and their accounts provide valuable information about the movement and its end. The later literary tradition — the chansons de geste, the chronicles of the medieval period, the modern historical and literary works — has preserved the memory of the People’s Crusade as a tragic but inspiring episode of the Crusading movement.

The People’s Crusade is a major subject of modern historical scholarship, and the scholarship on the People’s Crusade has illuminated many aspects of the movement — its origins, its march, its end, and its significance for the history of the Crusades and the history of medieval Europe. The People’s Crusade is also a subject of popular interest, and it has been the subject of numerous novels, films, and documentaries that explore the dramatic and tragic story of the popular movement that preceded the First Crusade.

Sources

Principal sources used in this article:

Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford, 2004).

Further reading:

Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Athlone, 1986).

For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).