Crusades Post #3
The Peasants Crusade
While Pope Urban was attempting to convince nobles and men of power to embark on Crusade, a whole host of peasants and lesser knights became embroiled in the fervor. This was largely spearheaded by the monk, Peter the Hermit of Amiens. Peter had purportedly been prevented from pilgraming to Jerusalem earlier by the Turks, which only added to his furor towards Muslims.
So he preached throughout France and Flanders, invoking claims of dreams of Christ. Soon thousands of peasants and lesser knights embarked on a pilgramage. Millenarianism was rife at this time, and Peter and many other preachers invoked that this was the end of times and that to have their souls saved they needed to reclaim the holy land.
So this rag-tag of "Crusaders" Left for the holy land, absorbing more and more followers and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
Jews were significantly targeted during this Crusade (something that was not typical of this time or in line with traditional Catholic teachings). The uneducated peasants seemed to struggle to identify the true purported enemy during this crusade (The Seljuk Turks), and ended up massacring the Jews who seemed other enough.
From Cologne Peter gathered a large force of approximately 40,000 Crusaders. From there they were to go to Jerusalem. These peasants had no idea how far Jerusalem was and soon became tired, hungry, and agitated in foreign lands. They ended up raiding and pillaging Christian and Byzantine peoples all along the way.
Once they arrived in Constantinople, the band of depleted peasants splintered yet most of their fates would end in defeat as they tried to raid and conquer the lands of the Suljuk Turks. Peter and a small faction staying in Constantinople as the actual true Crusading force made its way.
The result of this mishap was that the rulers who had been pillaged were less welcoming to the true Crusaders who progressed a similar route a year later.
