Shepherds' crusade of 1251

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The Shepherds' Crusade of 1251 took place as part of the Sixth Crusade (or according to the English and French counts during the Seventh Crusade). A second pastoral crusade took place in 1320.

Instead of shepherds crusade ( English Shepherds' Crusade ; French Croisade of Pastoureaux ) is sometimes the term Pastorellen Crusade used. The pastorelles (literally "shepherds", French pastoureaux ) were simple rural people who followed the calls for these crusades.

course

In the years 1249-1250 was King Ludwig IX. the saint (Louis IX le Saint) on the crusade in Egypt . He failed during the siege of the fortress al-Mansura in the northeast delta, had to withdraw and on April 6, 1250 was captured by the Egyptians on the way back to the Franconian base in Damiette . When this news reached France the following year , both nobles and peasants were deeply affected; the king was much loved and it was inconceivable to them that such a pious man could be defeated by "pagans". One of the supportive measures took the form of a peasant movement in northern France, led by a man known only as the "Master from Hungary" (French Maître de Hongrie ). He was apparently a very old Hungarian monk who lived in France.

The master claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and had given him the task of taking the shepherds (the pastorels, or pastoreaux as they were called in France) from France to the Holy Land in order to save Louis. His followers, who are said to have numbered 60,000, were mostly young rural people: men, women and children from Brabant , Hainaut , Flanders and Picardy . They followed him to Paris in May , where the master met Blanka of Castile , the mother of Louis IX, who ruled during his absence. Matthew Paris thought he was a swindler and, in fact, one of the leaders of the Children's Crusade that had taken place earlier in the same century. Their movement in the city was restricted. They were not allowed to enter the left bank , where the University of Paris was located, as Blanka feared possibly further unrest connected with the student riots at the University of Paris in 1229.

In any case, after leaving town, the pastoral crowd split up. Some of them went to Rouen , where they expelled the archbishop and threw some priests into the Seine . They attacked monasteries in Tours . The others, led by the Master, arrived in Orléans on June 11th . Here they were condemned by the bishop , whom they, like other clerics, including the Franciscans and Dominicans , also attacked. They also fought with university students in the city, which Blanka had already feared for Paris. They first moved to Amiens and then to Bourges , where their aggressiveness was also directed against the Jewish residents .

Blanka responded by ordering the hordes to be rounded up and excommunicated . This was easily done as they were simply wandering aimlessly in northern France, but the group led by the Master resisted outside of Bourges, and the Master was killed in the skirmish that followed.

The crusade appears to have been more of a revolt against the French church and the nobility believed to have abandoned Ludwig; the pastors, of course, had no idea of ​​Ludwig's fate or of the logistics involved in undertaking a crusade to save him. After it was scattered, some followers traveled to Aquitaine and England , where they were forbidden to preach. Others took crusade vows and may really have embarked on the crusade.

annotation

  1. ↑ There are different reports about its end. According to the contribution by fr.wikipedia, the movement extended to “ Rhineland-Palatinate and northern Italy . The repression became increasingly cruel and a few survivors made it to Marseilles and embarked for Acre , where they joined the crusaders. ” Norman Cohn describes their fate in detail.

Sources and literature

  • Matthäus Paris , Chronica majora (7 volumes. London 1872–1883. Rolls Series 57)
  • Chroniques de St. Denis , in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , XXI, 115 ff.
  • Margaret Wade Labarge, Saint Louis: The Life of Louis IX of France . London, 1968.
  • Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, Tome Troisième, II . Paris, 1901.
  • Régine Pernoud, La Reine Blanche . Paris, 1972.
  • Dictionnaire universel d'histoire et de geographie (Hachette-Paris 1867)
  • Francisque Michel: Job ou les pastoureaux: 1251. Paris: Vimont, 1832 (Moeurs du Moyen Age; 1) - Microfiche edition: Wildberg: Belser Wiss. Service, 1989–1990. (Edition Corvey) Contains: Audefroi-le-Batard: 1272; ISBN 3-628-58406-X .
  • Reinhold Röhricht : Die Pastorellen (1251) , in: Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte , Volume 6 (1884), pp. 0–295.
  • Élie Berger: Histoire de Blanche de Castille, pure de France. Paris 1895 (in Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome , vol. Lxx.)

Supplementary literature

Web links