People’s Crusade

The People’s Crusade was the first mass movement to set out after Pope Urban II called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Preachers including Peter the Hermit attracted men, women and families from northern France and the Rhineland, many of whom lacked the money, military organisation and supplies required for a journey across Europe and Anatolia.

The march was marked by hunger, indiscipline, attacks on Jewish communities and conflict with the populations through whose lands the pilgrims travelled. After crossing into Byzantine territory, much of the movement advanced into Asia Minor and was destroyed by Seljuk forces near Civetot in October 1096.

It supports fiction concerned with ordinary pilgrims, religious enthusiasm, coercion, family separation and the gulf between promises of salvation and the material realities of the road.