The People’s Crusade of 1096
The People’s Crusade was the popular, mostly untrained movement that set out for the Holy Land in the spring of 1096, several months before the main armies of the First Crusade. It was led by two Frenchmen, the preacher Peter the Hermit and the minor noble Walter Sans-Avoir. The chronicler Albert of Aachen, our principal source, records that Peter had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before the Council of Clermont and had been shown visions of the suffering of Christians there; whether the visions were real, manufactured, or (as seems most likely) a mix of both, Peter became the symbolic leader of the popular response. Within six months of their departure, the army had been largely destroyed in Anatolia, most famously at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096. The People’s Crusade was a catastrophic failure as a military expedition, but it remains one of the most striking examples of the popular appeal of the Crusading ideal.
For the broader context, see the main article on the First Crusade and the causes of the Crusades. For the question of who called for the First Crusade, see the dedicated article.
The Preaching of the Cross
When Pope Urban II concluded the Council of Clermont in late November 1095, the formal response to his call was slow. The nobility of France, Germany, and Italy needed time to settle their affairs, raise money, and assemble their forces. The expected departure date was the summer of 1096, the traditional time for military expeditions. In the meantime, however, the message of Clermont spread far more quickly and widely than anyone had anticipated.
Among those who heard the call were wandering preachers, who took the message to the villages and small towns of France and Germany. The most famous of these was Peter the Hermit, a French preacher from Amiens. According to the chronicler Albert of Aachen, Peter had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before the Council of Clermont, and while there had been shown visions of the suffering of Christians. He was said to have received a letter from heaven commanding him to preach the Crusade. Whether or not any of this is true, Peter became the symbolic leader of the popular response to Urban’s call.
Walter Sans-Avoir was a minor noble from the Île-de-France. Less famous than Peter, he was probably a more effective military leader, at least at the start of the expedition. He gathered a significant force and led it to Cologne, where it joined the larger army gathering around Peter.
The Army
The army that gathered around Peter and Walter in the spring of 1096 was enormous by the standards of the time, perhaps 20,000 people. It included a small core of armed knights, but the bulk of the force was made up of peasants, minor clergy, women, and children. The chroniclers are unanimous in describing the army as undisciplined, untrained, and ill-supplied. The modern historian Jonathan Riley-Smith has suggested that the army was, in part, a product of the severe famine that had struck parts of Europe in 1095.
The army set out in April 1096, marching through Germany along the Rhine and the Danube. Discipline broke down almost immediately. Chroniclers record that the Crusaders robbed and pillaged the local population, with the Jews of the Rhine cities suffering especially badly. The massacres of Jews in the Rhineland in 1096, particularly in Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, are among the earliest examples of anti-Jewish violence associated with the Crusades. The Jewish communities of these cities appealed to the local bishops for protection, and some of the bishops, like the Archbishop of Mainz, tried to provide it. Many Jews were killed, however, and many others converted to Christianity under duress.
Constantinople
The People’s Crusade reached Constantinople in July 1096. The Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who had his own reasons to be wary of the Latin West, was alarmed by the size and the disorder of the army. He quickly arranged for the Crusaders to be ferried across the Bosphorus to the Asian side, hoping to be rid of them. The Crusaders crossed into Anatolia in early August 1096, where they were supposed to wait for the main army of the First Crusade.
The plan was disastrous. The Crusaders had no supplies, no military discipline, and no support from the main army. The Seljuk Turks of the region, who had not yet learned of the formal expedition, treated the People’s Crusade as an invading mob. They harassed the army continuously, and the Crusaders were forced to retreat to the coastal town of Civetot (modern Çubuklu, near Istanbul) in early October.
The Battle of Civetot
On 21 October 1096, the Seljuk Turks launched a coordinated attack on the Crusader camp at Civetot. The battle that followed was a massacre. The Turkish archers and light cavalry outmaneuvered the Crusader foot soldiers, and the army was largely destroyed. Walter Sans-Avoir was killed. Peter the Hermit, who had been sent on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, escaped the battle and later rejoined the main army of the First Crusade.
The Battle of Civetot is significant for several reasons. It is the first major engagement between the Crusaders and the Seljuk Turks. It demonstrated the limits of the popular appeal of the Crusade, and the military risks of an expedition without proper leadership. It also provided a grim warning to the main army of the First Crusade, which arrived in Anatolia several months later.
The Survivors
The few survivors of the People’s Crusade straggled back to Constantinople or were sold into slavery. Some were ransomed by the Byzantines. Some joined the main army of the First Crusade. Peter the Hermit, despite his role in the disaster, was welcomed back to the Latin camp and was treated with respect. He served as a guide during the march through Anatolia and played a small but symbolic role in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099.
The People’s Crusade is not usually numbered as one of the traditional Crusades, but it is an important part of the broader story. It demonstrated the powerful popular appeal of the Crusade, the risks of an undisciplined expedition, and the danger of violence against non-combatants. The Jewish communities of the Rhineland would never forget the events of 1096, and the events would be a recurring feature of Crusading history in the centuries that followed.
The Massacre of the Rhineland Jews
The violence against Jewish communities in the Rhineland in 1096 is one of the most disturbing aspects of the People’s Crusade. As the army moved up the Rhine, it attacked the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne. The Jews of these cities had lived in relative peace with their Christian neighbors for centuries, but they were now seen as enemies of Christ. Some Crusaders argued that the Jews should be killed because they had allegedly helped the Muslims; others argued that they should be killed because they refused to convert.
The number of Jews killed is disputed, but modern historians estimate that perhaps 1,000 to 5,000 were killed across the Rhineland. The Jewish communities of these cities were never the same. The chronicler Solomon bar Simson recorded the events in his chronicle, the Nürnberger Memorbook, which became a central document of Jewish memory of the Crusades.
The massacres of 1096 were not the first anti-Jewish violence in medieval Europe, but they were the first to be explicitly associated with the Crusades. The violence would recur in 1147, 1306, 1348-49 (the Black Death persecutions), and in the expulsions from France (1306) and Spain (1492). The People’s Crusade, in this sense, marked the beginning of a long, tragic history of violence against Jews in the name of Christ.
Peter the Hermit in Later Tradition
Peter the Hermit became a legendary figure in later medieval tradition. He was the subject of several medieval romances, including the Chanson d’Antioche and the Continuation of William of Tyre. In these accounts, he is portrayed as the spiritual father of the Crusade, a humble man who had been chosen by God to deliver his message to the pope. The historical reality is more complex: Peter was a skilled preacher but a poor military leader, and his role in the disaster at Civetot is generally accepted.
Peter did participate in the main Crusade, and he was present at the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. He later returned to Europe, where he founded the Augustinian monastery of Neufmoustier near Huy in Belgium. He died around 1115 and was buried there. His cult was never officially recognized, but he remained a popular figure in the medieval imagination, the wandering preacher who had set the whole Crusade in motion.