The last years of the eleventh century were certainly not the most conducive to Christian-Muslim relations. The coexistence of religions had never been easy since Islam had spread 400 years earlier and first conquered the Holy Land, then the Iberian Peninsula and finally Anatolia right up to the gates of Constantinople. But what Pope Urban II was up to in the 1090s had a completely different quality. A call for help from Byzantium had reached him. The Muslims had advanced further; Atrocities against the Christian population are said to have been committed. Urban did not want to put up with this and so at the end of 1095 he called for a crusade for the first time to help the brothers in Constantinople and at the same time to recapture the holy places from the infidels. He called on all of Europe's nobles to get ready to leave in the summer of the following year, promising salvation no matter how much they had sinned in life. What Urban could not have guessed:even non-nobles felt attracted to such an offer. And they soon planned a people's crusade.
Peter the Hermit and an unlikely army
In any case, Pope Urban was not the only one who wanted a crusade to the east. There were completely different fanatics and a certain French monk named Peter the Hermit dreamed of exactly that at the time. Even before the Pope's call, he had begun telling horror stories about the Seljuks - the Muslim Turkic people who had recently taken control of much of the Middle East. Peter claimed he himself was ambushed by Turkish troops while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was not sparing in grisly details. And while no one could testify that Peter had ever traveled to Jerusalem (which is striking given that few made the pilgrimage alone), his followers believed him. On top of that, they were also becoming more and more numerous.
So the Pope's call came at just the right time for Peter the Hermit. This is exactly what he had wanted for so long! So he took action. Peter was now inciting the populace all over northern France to convince them of his idea of setting up their own people's crusade to the east. People's crusade because only knights and other nobles could take part in the actual crusade. Peter also had some "arguments" ready to convince the peasantry of his plan. So in addition to the generally promised salvation, of course. Jesus Christ himself is said to have given him the order for the march. Who could resist that? Obviously nobody, because Peter was extremely successful in his mobilization. Up to 40,000 people, mostly farmers and poor people with no combat experience, joined him and were ready to join the people's crusade as soon as possible. But they didn't want to wait for the noble gentlemen of the Pope.
The People's Crusade begins
Contrary to Pope Urban's decision, the assembled peasant crowd did not wait until August to go on the crusade, but set out from Western Europe as early as April 1096. Apparently nobody looked at a map of their route and they didn't think about food for the long journey (a main reason for the Pope, who was waiting for the harvest). Many joined the train in the first place because they wanted to escape the misery and hunger at home. Somehow they would get the food. So already at this point, Peter lost control of the mob. While he wanted to recruit more volunteers in Cologne, some of his French companions were already getting hungry and impatient. Under the leadership of a Walter Sans-Avoir - a really sounding name:"Walter Ohnebesitz" - a few thousand crusaders separated from the group and set off on their own. And indeed, in less than a month, they made it to the border of the Byzantine Empire in Belgrade. A promising start!
There was only one problem. Unfortunately, nobody in Belgrade knew about their arrival. The Pope's crusader army was not expected until many months later, so the local Byzantine commander did not allow the people's crusade around Walter into the city until the Pope and Constantinople had checked. Of course, asking questions at the time meant sending out a rider, which could take a while. And we've already talked about the supply situation for the Crusaders. So they were still hungry and soon plundered the area around Belgrade. Surprisingly for everyone involved, it was even crowned with success! Eventually, the Byzantine governor allowed them to move further south, and troops even escorted them to Constantinople. The first participants in the people's crusade had already arrived at the Bosporus in July - even before the actual crusade had even started!
You don't have to go that far just to find infidels!
Peter the Hermit and the rest of the troop left Cologne just ten days after Walter in a group estimated to be 20,000 people. They too made it to Belgrade without any major obstacles and they too ran into the first problems there... After the crusaders (probably against Peter's will, but what should he do) plundered a market near Belgrade, Byzantine troops came towards them, the against all odds, the peasant army was able to flee. In the end, the crusaders around Peter even entered Belgrade and plundered and burned the city. Despite everything, the Byzantines remained friendly. They offered to escort Peter to Constantinople as well if he was willing to leave immediately, which Peter accepted. Unfortunately, some of his people burned down a mill on the way and the Byzantine governor in Niš in southern Serbia sent his army anyway. The Crusaders were crushed this time. Barely a quarter of the 20,000 eventually made it to Constantinople, where they reunited with the first group.
In the following weeks, a few other small troops set off from the Rhineland on the people's crusade. A group led by Count Emicho achieved particularly tragic fame. Similar to Peter, Emicho also claimed to have received a divine inspiration. Unlike Peter, however, God not only suggested that he go to Jerusalem and liberate the Holy Land. No:Apparently God also mentioned something about Jews. At least that's what Emicho wants to hear. And he acted immediately. Instead of moving towards Belgrade and Constantinople like the other groups, he attacked cities in the Rhineland to lynch the Jewish communities there. First in Speyer, then in Worms, where Emicho's troops murdered around 500 Jews, even though the local bishop had hidden them in his residence. In Mainz he let the Jewish population pay him to spare them, but in the end he murdered them in cold blood. A fine gentleman through and through, this Emicho. His troops subsequently made it as far as Hungary, but there they tangled with the authorities and were crushed. So Emicho never saw Constantinople or even Jerusalem.
The people's crusade also comes to a tragic end
The reunited colleagues in Constantinople fared no better. Furthermore, none of them wanted to wait for the actual crusader army, so at some point the Eastern Roman emperor gave them a few ships and escorted them across the Bosphorus to the country occupied by the Seljuks. Peter the Hermit had long since lost control of the army by this point. The various groups - German, French and others - raced to see who could plunder more locations in less time. In the process, the crusaders murder countless innocent residents, almost all of them Christians by the way (not that that makes anything better or worse). But when the Seljuk troops finally arrived, the theater soon came to an end. The remaining people's crusade was literally wiped out by them and those who were not willing to convert to Islam faced execution. Only a few crusaders managed to hold on in an old fortress and were later rescued by Byzantine troops (seriously...why are they still so nice to this bunch...) and brought back to Constantinople. Of the once almost 40,000 people, just 3,000 survived their peasant crusade.
So what's the bottom line of the whole action? After just under six months, over 90 percent of the original participants in the people's crusade were dead. Tens of thousands were murdered along the way, almost all of them Jews and Christians. Victories against the actually declared enemy against:zero. But the people's crusade did not fail completely. Or at least one can award this plundering rabble a small success under certain circumstances. The Seljuk troops were quite surprised at how easy it was to defeat these western European armies. It is now quite possible that they also underestimated the actual crusader army a few months later. After their experiences with this bunch, they did not think that the crusade posed any serious danger. And three years later Jerusalem fell. But whether it was really like that … that is pure speculation. But last but not least, one can state that the people's crusade was by far not the only bitterly failed crusade in history. There's a whole list of them.
Needless to say, the 11th century and the atrocities of Emicho weren't the only time in history that our Jewish fellow citizens had a hard time. I talk about another very famous example this week on the podcast:the affair of the French-Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus. Listen!