People’s Crusade

Also called: Peasants’ Crusade, Popular Crusade

Ahead of the knights’ armies, tens of thousands of poor people stirred by Peter the Hermit set out for the Holy Land, only to be destroyed by the Seljuks in Asia Minor in October 1096.

As the call of Clermont spread, peasants and the urban poor followed preachers such as Peter the Hermit and set out first, in the spring of 1096, from Cologne and elsewhere. With little supply or command, they plundered and clashed their way through Hungary and Byzantine lands. Around the same time, in the Rhineland towns of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, bands led by Count Emicho and others attacked Jewish communities as “the enemies of Christ close at hand”, killing many.

Alexios I hurried the crowds across the Bosporus. Ignoring advice to wait for the knights, the People’s Crusade advanced into Seljuk territory and in October 1096 was crushed near Civetot by the army of Kilij Arslan. Peter, who was in Constantinople at the time, survived and later reached Jerusalem with the knights’ armies.