What Was the Children's Crusade?

The Children's Crusade was a Crusade led by a young boy who wanted to join adults defending Christendom during the tumult of the Middle Ages. There is some debate as to whether the boy was French or German, but in 1212, he motivated a large crowd which followed him to Italy, and then to the Middle East, where the young Crusaders were ultimately captured and sold into slavery. It certainly sounds like a fascinating story, especially to modern readers interested in medieval history; unfortunately, all the evidence suggests that the Children's Crusade didn't actually happen.

As often happens in history, the precise origin of the legends about the Children's Crusade isn't known, since the alleged event occurred so long ago. However, once enough sources picked up the story and claimed that it was true, people bought the bait, and generally agreed that there was, in fact, a crusade led by a motivated shepherd boy who claimed to have received visions from God. The supposed miracles which facilitated the passage to the Middle East should have been a tipoff, but apparently people were eager to believe in the idea of the Children's Crusade, and it wasn't until the late 20th century that historians decided to get to the bottom of the story.

What they discovered is that the idea of the “Children's Crusade” was probably largely brought about entirely by accident. The myth was created due to a confusion in translation. The Latin word for “boys,” pueri, was also used in the Middle Ages as a slang term to refer to the landless poor. Translators who didn't understand the implications read contemporary accounts of groups of pueri wandering the countryside with claims of being on Crusade, and translated these texts with children in mind, not impoverished adults.

In fact, evidence seems to suggest that the so-called ce was actually ausader motley crew of landless individuals who wandered Europe after being displaced. Once of the driving forces behind the Crusades was the issue of land and inheritance, because as the population of Europe grew, so did pressures on family lands. Landless individuals often joined forces in the search for charity or a new place to settle, and at least one landless group in 1212 did indeed claim to be going on Crusade, although evidence suggests that they never got out of Europe.

The story of the Children's Crusade is a fascinating example of the ways in which history can be misinterpreted, and it's a sobering lesson. You should always check the sources for your information about a historical event, whether the event happened 2,000 years ago or last week, because a single misprint or mistranslation can be rapidly disseminated and it can endure for centuries.