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This book takes on a multitude of subjects from the biographies of known or unknown, but interesting, people to ideologies, historical events, etc., etc.. This is one of the historical events which deserves to be remembered ....
When the Children Went On A Crusade
The Medieval crusades have been seen as something very brave and honorable, but not all of them were either. Also, we tend to forget that we - the Christian part of the world - didn't come out victorious. No, we set out on a war to further the Christian faith as well as our supremacy, and we lost which ought to be remembered and not forgotten as it seems to have been.
One of the events from this war for Christ which it's impossible to forget even today is the Children's Crusades in 1212. There were two of them and the first one was instigated by a 12 year old shepherd-boy named Stephen (or Etienne). Somehow he succeeded in approaching the French king Philip and handing him "a letter from Jesus" whom he said had appeared to him while he was tending the sheep.
Presumably Jesus had ordered him to go and preach the Crusades to the public. However, the king didn't believe him or wasn't too impressed by him. Anyway, this young boy of 12 was undismayed by such a setback which might have made anybody else stop once and for all. Actually, after seeing the king he started to preach wherever he had a chance to bring out his message.
He seems to have been an oral genius who caught the attention of a lot of devout Christians. Some of these were c. 20-30,000 thousand children whom he convinced to follow him. Several of these children were of noble birth and must have eloped their wealthy homes to join his Christian "army".
At Marseilles two merchants, who went by the nicknames of Hugh the Iron and William the Pig, offered them ships, free of charge - and sadly to say from then on the child Crusaders were lost to history for many years: They disappeared and were not to be seen or heard of until the fate of some of them was disclosed 18 years later.
In Germany a boy by the name of Nicholas set off on his own plan like with the first child Crusaders. He and his cohorts - also many girls - set out for Palestine, but their losses were heavy, due to starvation and other hardships. Sadly enough when some of them gave up their plans to go to Palestine they were too exhausted to go back home, so they decided to stay where they were, i.e. Italy.
By this time Nicholas had disappeared, and when the parents of some of the children were looking for him in vain they caught his old father and executed him as a substitute for his son.
As to Stephen and his followers who had set out in three ships then two of these were shipwrecked and all aboard drowned. Their fate was disclosed to their relatives when a young priest returned home to Europe after 18 years of captivity in a Muslim country. He told them that those on the third ship were captured and taken to Muslim slave markets where they were sold, presumably by those two shady merchants who had proposed to help them. However, these two callous scoundrels met their karma when they, a few years later, were hanged for their totally insane attempt to kidnap the Emperor Frederick.
Some of the merchandised Christian children were killed for not being willing to accept Islam, but others had the good luck to be bought by the governor of Egypt, al-Kamil, who treated them very kindly. He set them to work as interpreters, teachers, etc. without demanding that they embraced the Muslim faith.
Most of the stories about the children’s crusades are considered to be myths, but weird as it is, it's a historical fact that these groups of children set out as crusaders just as did the grown-ups. In many respects both of these two groups were deluded by their own all too high ideals, dreams and hopes, but also a certain haughtiness as they were convinced that they alone and not those whom they set out to fight had religion ….
https://www.britannica.com/event/Childrens-Crusade
Wikipedia
