Children's crusade

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The Children's Crusade ( Latin peregrinatio puerorum ) was an event in which in the early summer of 1212 thousands of children, young people and adults from Germany and France , led by visionary boys, embarked on an unarmed crusade to the Holy Land . The train seems to have already disbanded on the shores of the Italian Mediterranean .

Concept: peregrinatio puerorum

The name Children's Crusade is a translation of the term peregrinatio puerorum, which is often used in the sources . Both peregrinatio ( crusade ) and puer ( child ), however, allow several possible interpretations.

The depiction of the shepherds during the birth of Jesus on the west portal of Chartres Cathedral, characteristic of their time (12th century). At the same time the shepherd Stefan is said to have received his vision in Cloyes.

puer

The participants in the Children's Crusade were not, as the name implies, exclusively children, but to a large extent young people and groups of adults. Most of them were members of lower social classes.

The idea of ​​a children's crusade may be based on a linguistic misunderstanding . The Latin word “puer” can be translated not only as “child” or “boy”, but also as “servant”. Above all, this referred to the youngest children of farming families, who often only found a job as shepherds or day laborers and thus formed a poor rural lower class. This interpretation of the name has been partially confirmed by several recent researches.

Other researchers point to a shift in the meaning of the term puer , which began in the 13th century and is related to the newly emerged voluntary poverty movement.

peregrinatio

The term crusade is less controversial than the term child . The term crusade was only used in German from the 17th century. In the sources on the children's crusade, the terms peregrinatio (pilgrimage), iter (way) and expeditio (campaign) are used. These terms with the indication of the destination Jerusalem and the reference to wearing the sign of the cross (crucisignati) is by all means the common contemporary term for crusade. Although the participants in the Children's Crusade were unarmed and no papal crusade call had preceded, the term crusade is considered appropriate in research.

Compare also the change in interpretation of the term peregrinatio from the original name of a way of life (life in a foreign country) to the name of Christian pilgrimage . See Lemma Peregrinatio .

If the children’s crusade continues to be mentioned in the following, this must always be understood in the expanded meaning of “puer” and “peregrinatio” .

Sources

Self-portrait of the chronicler Matthäus Paris (1200–1259) in his Chronica Majora

The sources on the Children's Crusades are poor in that not a single eyewitness report by one of the participants has survived. Around 50 contemporary sources, mainly entries in monastery annals, can be found. According to Peter Raedts, of these, however, only the 20 that were made before 1220 can be considered relevant. The authors of the sources, which were created between 1220 and 1250, can still be regarded as contemporaries. The sources that arose after 1250, however, mainly come from second or third hand.

Some historians have assumed that the pastoral movement , the flagellant movement and the children's pilgrimages to Mont-Saint-Michel are connected to the children's crusade; However, due to different conditions of origin and different dates, these relationships are considered implausible, also because these movements never aimed at the liberation of Jerusalem.

The saga of the Pied Piper of Hameln belongs to the context of eastern colonization and probably has nothing to do with the Children's Crusade (see interpretation of the Pied Piper's legend ).

The creation of legends and legends about the children's crusade started very early. In this regard, three thirteenth-century chroniclers are particularly important. These are Alberich von Trois-Fontaines , Matthäus Paris and Vinzenz von Beauvais . Your reports on the Children's Crusade are deeply shrouded in myth and were widely received in later historiography. Since they are considered “contemporary witnesses”, their entries were considered credible until well into the 19th century and were often copied unseen.

Based on the sources classified as credible, the chronology and the path of the children's crusade can be approximately reconstructed. At the same time, the lack of sources indicates implausible interpretations. For example, not a single chronicle entry was found south of the Loire for the French train, which, according to Alberich von Trois-Fontaines, had led from the Île-de-France to Marseille .

context

Saladin wins the True Cross . Depiction in the Chronica majora by Matthew Paris, 13th century.
Crusade Crisis

In 1187, the Crusaders suffered a massive defeat at the Battle of Hattin . Saladin recaptured the Kingdom of Jerusalem and managed to capture the True Cross of Christ . In the Third Crusade that followed (1189-1192), the city of Acre was recaptured, but the recovery of Jerusalem failed. The Fourth Crusade of 1204 was a complete failure as it was diverted to Christian Constantinople and ended with the conquest and sacking of the city. In this crisis of the crusade, a voluntary poverty movement emerged in northern France. Preachers like Peter von Blois , Alain de Lille , Fulko von Neuilly, and others believed that only a movement of the innocent and the poor would be able to recapture the tomb of Christ.

Crusade against the Albigensians

In the first half of the 12th century was the lay movement of the Cathars emerged, particularly in the Occitan large (southern France) Dissemination found. When all the countermeasures of the church against the heretics had little effect, Pope Innocent III called. 1208 after the murder of Pierre de Castelnau on the crusade against the Albigensians . A large number of noble and non-noble people from the Île-de-France area followed the call and joined the crusade army under the Bishop of Chartres in 1210.

Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

In 1211 an Almohad army under Sultan Muhammad an-Nasir crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and recaptured Christian areas of Spain, including the castle of the Order of Calatrava in Salvatierra (a medieval castle in the province of Ciudad Real in Spain, around 1199-1211 Seat of the order). Thereupon Pope Innocent III called. on a crusade. At the same time, the Pope urged all of Christianity to pray in processions for victory against the inimicos Christianitatis (enemies of Christianity). The company finally ended on July 16, 1212 with the victory of the Christians over the Muslims in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa .

Origin: Étienne de Cloyes (Stefan von Cloyes)

Chartres Cathedral , built from 1194 to 1260

As in the octave after Pentecost 1212 Pope Innocent III. had also arranged processions in the area of ​​Chartres, some of these processions seemed to have escaped the control of the clergy and had become independent. With flags, crosses, candles and censer these processions passed through different cities in the Paris basin and sang: Domine deus, exalta Christianitatem et redde nobis veram crucem (Lord God, raise Christianity and give us back the true cross). A chronicler from Laon reports that at almost the same time a young shepherd named Étienne (German: Stefan) appeared in Cloyes , a village near Vendôme , who claimed that Jesus appeared to him in the form of a poor pilgrim and had him given a letter to the French king. Supporters flocked to him from all over France. The crowd, which had grown to 30,000 people, followed Étienne to St. Denis , where he worked several miracles and was recognized as a leader. But King Philippe Auguste dissolved the movement after questioning the masters of Paris. Étienne de Cloyes obeyed him and the great crowd had dispersed.

That is the last message from Étienne de Cloyes. But not all participants seem to have gone home. At the end of June, beginning of July 1212, a group of pueri could be found in Rocourt near Saint-Quentin . They were involved in social unrest there or even triggered it (occasione puerorum) . This dispute between the clergy and the laity evidently concerned the distribution of alms . Then the traces of the pueri are lost . Maybe they moved on to Liege . This is indicated by the entry of Renier of Lüttich, presumably a contemporary, in the annals of his monastery. That chronicler mentions an astonishing movement of pueri from France and Germany (de Romano quam Teutonico regno) , mostly shepherds, who showed the intention to cross the sea in order to achieve what the mighty and kings failed, namely to regain the Holy Sepulcher . Renier fixed the event at the beginning of July 1212. The young crusaders moved from Liège (presumably via Aachen ) to Cologne , where they joined the German train.

German train: Nicholas of Cologne

Hildebold Cathedral in Cologne (until 1248), tracing from the Hillinus Codex (11th century)

Between Easter and White Sunday of the year 1212, crowds of "pueri" gathered in the Rhineland and Lower Lorraine to set off for Jerusalem. No external reason is evident from the sources. In some sources a certain Nikolaus, a boy from Cologne , is named as the leader. An angel appeared to him and asked him to free the holy grave from the Saracens . God would support the procession and divide the sea so that, like the Israelites (cf. Exodus , chapters 13-15), they would get to the Holy Land with dry feet. The Chronicle of Trier reports that Nicholas carried a sign of the cross in the shape of a rope as a sign of his election.

Based on the entries in various chronicles, the train can be roughly reconstructed. From Cologne the group moved via Trier to Speyer and from there further south. The trip will have been pretty exhausting. A chronicle from Cologne reports that many of the participants died of hunger and thirst even before they crossed the Alps. Where exactly the Alps were crossed is difficult to see from the sources. The accumulation of entries in the Bavarian and Austrian Chronicles leads to the assumption that the train on the burner in the Lombardy arrived.

The crusade participants finally arrived in Genoa on August 25th via Cremona and Piacenza . The city chronicler of Genoa noted that around 7,000 men, women and children (“pueros et puellas”) had come to the city. Some had already left the city the next day, obviously disappointed that the miracle of the division of the sea had not materialized.

After the “Debacle of Genoa”, the train seems to have split up. One part moved on to Marseille, another part moved towards Rome. There they should according to the annals of Marbach Pope Innocent III. sought to be released from their crusade vows. A larger group is said to have tried to board ships to Palestine in Pisa and Brindisi . The few who succeeded in doing so were eventually sold as slaves to the Saracens .

None of the crusade participants seem to have reached the Holy Land. Some of them probably stayed in Italy, where they hired themselves out as servants and maids. All sources agree that of the thousands who crossed the Alps, few found their way back. On the way home they were often greeted maliciously. The Marbach annalist notes with scorn that those who, singing in droves towards the south on the way there, came home meek, barefoot, hungry and laughed at by everyone.

French train to Alberich von Trois-Fontaines

The children's crusade , fantasy by Johann Jakob Kirchhoff, 1843
The Children's Crusade , romanticizing illustration by Gustave Doré , 19th century

Alberich, a monk from the Trois-Fontaines monastery , wrote a story about the Children's Crusade, which ties in with the events of Stefan von Cloyes, which most researchers today describe as implausible due to a lack of sources of comparison, but which is still rumored in some cases. The story, which contains not only myths but also a lot of history, was widely circulated and is the basis for the further development of the so-called "French train".

After Alberich, the crusade of small children (expeditio infantium) moved from Vendôme to Paris. When they were 30,000 together, they moved to Marseille to cross the sea and fight the Saracens. The children were lured onto seven large ships by two malevolent merchants and captains, Hugo Ferreus ("the iron one") and Wilhelm Porcus ("the pig"). After two days they got caught in a storm and two of the ships sank off Sardinia. Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241) later donated a church of the New Innocents on the island of San Pietro in honor of these children . The remaining five ships went on to Bejaia and Alexandria , where the children were sold as slaves to the Saracens. There were four hundred clerics among these slaves. In addition, the children were sold on to Baghdad that same year , where eighteen of them died as martyrs. Eighteen years after the Children's Crusade (1230), seven hundred children, now of manhood, were still slaves in Alexandria.

literature

Scientific literature

  • Gary Dickson: The Children's Crusade. Medieval history, modern mythistory. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke et al. 2008, ISBN 978-1-4039-9989-4 .
  • Michael Menzel : The Children's Crusades from an intellectual and social historical perspective. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages 55, 1999, ISSN  0012-1223 , pp. 117–156.
  • Franco Cardini : La crociata dei fanciulli. Giunti, Florence 1999, ISBN 88-09-21770-5 .
  • Gary Dickson: La Genese de la Croisade des Enfants (1212). In: Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes. Revue d'Erudition 153, No. I, 1995, ISSN  0373-6237 , pp. 53-103.
  • Corinna Roeder: The children's crusade of 1212 in Germany from the perspective of contemporaries. In: Geschichte in Köln 34, 1993, ISSN  0720-3659 , pp. 5-44.
  • Ulrich Gäbler : The “Children's Crusade” from 1212 . In: Swiss Journal for History No. 28, 1978, ISSN  0036-7834 , pp. 1–14 ( digitized version ).
  • Peter Raedts: The Children's Crusade of 1212. In: Journal of Medieval History 3, 1977, ISSN  0304-4181 , pp. 279-324.
  • G. Miccoli: La Crociata dei Fanciulli del 1212. In: Studi Medievali 3rd Ser., 2, 1961, ISSN  0391-8467 , pp. 407-443.
  • George Zabriskie Gray: The Children's Crusade. An episode of the thirteenth century. Hurd and Houghton, New York NY 1872 ( digitized ).
  • Reinhold Röhricht : Der Kinderkreuzzug 1212. In: Historische Zeitschrift 36, 1876, ISSN  0018-2613 , pp. 1–8.
  • Klaus Arnold : Children's Crusade. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Volume 5. 1991, pp. 1150-1151.
  • Jonathan Riley-Smith : Crusades. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE). Volume 20, 1990 (pp. 1-10, on the Children's Crusade; pp. 2, 13-15 on the general background, large parts of the article).
  • Gabriela Signori : The 13th Century: An Introduction to the History of Late Medieval Europe . W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-17-019096-2 .

Fiction

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ “… multa milia puerorum a 6 annis et supra usque ad virilem etatem,…” in: Chronica Regia Coloniensis continuatio IIa in: Georg Waitz (ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 18: Chronica regia Coloniensis (Annales maximi Colonienses). Hannover 1880, pp. 171–196 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized ). In German: ... many thousands of children, from the age of six to manhood ...
  2. ↑ Cf. Georges Duby : Les pauvres des campagnes dans l'occident médiéval jusqu'au XIIIe siècle . In: Revue d'histoire de l'eglise de France , 1968 pp. 23–32.
  3. ↑ Philippe Ariès : History of Childhood , Munich 1975.
  4. ↑ Miccoli (1961)
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Raedts (1977)
  6. ^ Roeder (1993)
  7. ^ Dickson (1995)
  8. ↑ See Menzel (1999), pp. 154f.
  9. ↑ See Raedts (1977), especially the section The “Crusade” , pp. 300-310.
  10. ↑ Ulrich Gäbler wants to see the number of reliable sources limited to five. Gäbler (1978)
  11. ↑ The most detailed account of the source situation in Peter Raedts (1977).
  12. ↑ See Menzel (1999), pp. 149f.
  13. ^ A b Albrici monachi Trium-Fontium Chronicon , ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in folio) 23: Chronica aevi Suevici. Hanover 1874, pp. 631–950 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  14. ^ Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica Majora, ed. HR Luard 1874. RS London.
  15. ↑ Vincentii Bellovacensis Speculum Historiale. Douai 1624, repr. Graz 1964-5.
  16. ↑ See Dickson (2008), especially the chapter Mythistory: The Shape of a Story , pp. 131–157.
  17. ^ Munro (1913)
  18. ^ Dickson (2008)
  19. ↑ For the context cf. Dickson (2008), especially the chapter Birthpangs of the Children's Crusade , pp. 36-58.
  20. ↑ Auctarium Mortui Maris , ed. L. Bethmann. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 6: Chronica et annales aevi Salici. Hannover 1844, pp. 463-469 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version ).
  21. ↑ Chronicon universal anonymi Laudunensis , ed A. Cartellieri and W. Stechele in. Georg Waitz (ed.): Scriptores (in folio) 26: Ex rerum Francogallicarum scriptoribus. Ex historiis auctorum Flandrensium Francogallica lingua scriptis. Hanover 1882, pp. 442–443 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  22. ↑ Cf. Dickson (2008), section Violence at Saint-Quentin , pp. 77-82.
  23. ↑ Erat autem eorum intentio mare se velle transire, et quod potentes et reges non fecerant, sepulcrum Christi recuperare . Reineri Annales S. Jacobi Leodiensis, ed. GH Pertz. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 16: Annales aevi Suevici. Hanover 1859, pp. 632–83 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  24. ↑ a b Chronicon Ebersheimense , ed. L. Weiland. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in folio) 23: Chronica aevi Suevici. Hanover 1874, pp. 427–53 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  25. ↑ Gestorum Treverorum continuatio IVa . In: Georg Waitz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 24: Annales aevi Suevici (Supplementa tomorum XVI et XVII) Gesta saec. XII. XIII. (Supplementa tomorum XX-XXIII). Hanover 1879, pp. 368–399 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  26. ↑ Chronica Regia Coloniensis continuatio IIIa . In: Georg Waitz (Ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separately in editi 18: Chronica regia Coloniensis (Annales maximi Colonienses). Hanover 1880, pp. 199–256 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  27. ↑ Annales Ianuenses , ed. K. Pertz. In: Georg Heinrich Pertz u. a. (Ed.): Scriptores (in Folio) 18: Annales aevi Suevici. Hannover 1863, pp. 1–356 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  28. ↑ Annales Marbacenses , ed. H. Bloch. In: Hermann Bloch (Ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separately in editi 9: Annales Marbacenses qui dicuntur Appendix: Annales Alsatici breviores. Hanover 1907, pp. 1–103 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
  29. ↑ quoted in Roeder (1993), p. 30.
  30. ↑ See for example: Gabriela Signori: Das 13. Jahrhundert (2007), p. 40f.