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1 Grant Benson HIST 3010W – Crusades December 12, 2011 The Children’s Crusade of 1212 – Interpretations Throughout History The events of the Children’s Crusade is one of the most unusual and debated topics of Medieval history. Occurring at the end of the Fourth Crusade, the Children’s Crusade is often discussed amongst historians not because of its relevance to the Crusades as a whole (although very much so), but because of the mystery that surrounds it. Despite many of goings on in the year 1212, chroniclers at the time paid special attention to an event that many of them had difficulty even defining. One historian wrote that it was “a miraculous affair, indeed more than miraculous, for nothing of the sort had ever been heard in the world.” 1 However, despite the enthusiasm from various authors at the time, what actually happened during the Children’s Crusade is especially difficult to identify. Several conflicting accounts of 1 Georg Waitz, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212” in Journal of Medieval History (Volume 3, Issue 4, 1977) 279.
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Grant Benson

HIST 3010W – Crusades

December 12, 2011

The Children’s Crusade of 1212 – Interpretations Throughout History

The events of the Children’s Crusade is one of the most unusual and debated topics of

Medieval history. Occurring at the end of the Fourth Crusade, the Children’s Crusade is often

discussed amongst historians not because of its relevance to the Crusades as a whole (although

very much so), but because of the mystery that surrounds it. Despite many of goings on in the

year 1212, chroniclers at the time paid special attention to an event that many of them had

difficulty even defining. One historian wrote that it was “a miraculous affair, indeed more than

miraculous, for nothing of the sort had ever been heard in the world.”1 However, despite the

enthusiasm from various authors at the time, what actually happened during the Children’s

Crusade is especially difficult to identify. Several conflicting accounts of the Children’s Crusade

exist, and the facts of the events remain in question among scholars. In fact, the events

surrounding the Children’s Crusade have been questioned so much that some historians have

claimed that the Children’s Crusade didn’t even happen. “Whole narratives of what actually

happened didn’t show up until 50 years later, time enough for imaginations to get active.”2

Although it’s true the information about the Children’s Crusade that was written (a majority of

them generations after the event actually occurred) is far from 100 percent accurate, that doesn’t

mean such events never took place. Such information is highlighted in Peter Raedts’ article “The

Children’s Crusade of 1212 and in Gary Dickson’s 2008 book The Children’s Crusade:

1 Georg Waitz, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212” in Journal of Medieval History (Volume 3, Issue 4, 1977) 279.2 “The Children’s Crusade,” History House Inc., accessed November 5, 2011, http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/childrens_crusade/

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Medieval History, Modern Mythistory. These works provide a more detailed version of the

Children’s Crusade, a version that proves the Children’s Crusade did indeed happen, albeit not

without variables that supported the “myth” of the Children’s Crusade. The so-called

“mythistory” lies in the interpretation (or misinterpretation) of primary sources written around

the time of the Children’s Crusade. Analyzing these sources of the Children’s Crusade is

important in understanding the interpretations of the Children’s Crusade today. Not only does

analysis of these documents explain why the Children’s Crusade could be viewed as an

interpretation of the imagination, it also sheds light on the true events of what was the “real”

Children’s Crusade.

Like mentioned previously, there are different viewpoints on the Children’s Crusade. For

years, the Children’s Crusade was thought as a movement of starry-eyed children subjecting

themselves to the harsh realities of the brutal world, giving up their home, their freedom, and

their lives for an opportunity to reclaim the holy land of Jerusalem.3 The long-standing,

traditional view of the Children’s Crusade has many variations, some with very similar themes.

The main interpretation of the Children’s Crusade, prior to the modern view, tells the story of a

young boy preaching in France or Germany. This boy claimed that he had been visited by Jesus

Christ and told to lead a crusade to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. Through a series

of skilled preaching and supposed miracles, this boy gained a considerable following of possibly

as many as 30,000 children. The boy led his followers south towards the Mediterranean Sea,

believing the sea would part on their arrival, allowing him and his followers an easy path to

Jerusalem. When the sea didn’t part, two merchants gave passage on boats to as many children

that were willing to go. They were then either taken to Tunisia and sold into slavery, or died in a

3 Gary Dickson, The Children’s Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), xi

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shipwreck during a storm. Some may have also given up before reaching the sea, because of

starvation and exhaustion.

Much of what was thought to be known about the Children’s Crusade was interpreted

from three different sources written at or near the time of the Children’s Crusade. Information at

the time of the Children’s Crusade was fragmentary and continuously vague. Usually only

consisting of a few lines, or at most, a paragraph.

For certain children gathered together from all the towns and villages of Germany,and, as if by divine inspiration, they met in each place, united into a troop, andheaded for the road to Jerusalem as if they meant to recapture the Holy Land. Theleader and head of this journey was Nicholas, a boy from Cologne…When thechildren arrived at Brindisi, the local bishop, sensing something underhanded, didnot permit them to cross the sea. For Nicholas’ father sold them to the heathens,and this happened from the evil deed of demons.4

Accounts like this, written by Deeds of Trier, were consistent with the rest of the accounts on the

Children’s Crusade at the time. Vague wording, coupled with information with religious

undertones was a regular occurrence with information regarding the Children’s Crusade. The

account written by Deeds of Trier was the most detailed of these primary sources. It was the only

source that mentioned the crusaders’ trek to Brindisi. It also mentions that the crusaders’ leader,

Nicholas, was betrayed by his father which ultimately led to Nicholas’ death. Although, no

background information is given on what might have compelled Nicholas’ father to do such a

thing.

Despite being vague about the “juicy” details, the chronicle written by Trier was perhaps

the most detailed primary account of the Children’s Crusade. Nicholas isn’t even mentioned in

another chronicle that originated in Cologne.

4 J. Shinners, trans. Medieval Popular Religion, 1000-1500: A Reader (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1997), 398-399

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An absolutely marvelous thing happened that same year [1212], all themore marvelous since such a thing was unheard of in the world. For aroundEaster and Pentecost from all Germany and France with no encouragement or preaching but driven by unknown inspiration many thousands of childrenfrom six years old all the way to young manhood abandoned the plows and wagons they drove…and suddenly ran one after the other and undertook acrusade.5

The chronicler from Cologne mentions that children abandoned their way of life with “no

encouragement or preaching,” which isn’t consistent with other reports. Even one of the sources

describing the movement in France provides with a description (albeit brief) of a leader:

In the month of June of the same year [1212] a certain boy, occupation ashepherd, of a village named Cloyes near the town of Vendome, said thatthe Lord had appeared to him in the form of a poor pilgrim, had receivedbread from him, and had delivered letters to him to be taken to the king ofthe French. When he came, together with his fellow shepherd-boys, nearlythirty thousand people assembled around him from all parts of France…All acknowledged him as master and prince over them.6

Again, the account is brief, shedding no light on logistics or intricacies of this supposed crusade

undertook by children. The briefness and lack of explanation of these initial sources created a

blurred view of what the Children’s Crusade was. Certainly, it opened a window for an

abundance of open interpretation that led to a long-standing, traditional view of the Children’s

Crusade.

This long-standing view began to come under fire from scholars who analyzed the

Children’s Crusade more closely. In the years following the events of the Children’s Crusade,

many scholars refused to forget about it. 40-50 years after the Children’s Crusade, scholars like

Vincent Beauvais, Roger Bacon, Thomas of Cantipre, and Matthew Paris mentioned the events

5 Shinners, trans. Medieval Popular Religion, 398-3996 R.H. Cooke, trans. In J.F.C. Hecker, The Epidemics of the Middle Ages (London: Trubner & Co., 1895), 357

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of the Children’s Crusade in their works.7 In these works, the authors provided a more detailed

discussion of what was implied as a children’s crusade. However, new scholars that tackled the

event 40-50 years after its conclusion revised the older tales, sometimes with great candor and

imagination. They described how children throughout France and Germany joined a young

prophet and set off to the Holy Land under this prophet’s leadership. They sang songs and

prayed, but suffered great deprivation. They cross the Alps to the Mediterranean, where in their

“childlike innocence” they waited for God to divide the sea and allow them to cross; and when

the eagerly awaited miracle proved to be a cruel deception, they fell into the hands of charlatans

who loaded them into boats and sold them into the slave trade off the coast of northern Africa.8

This is our traditional view of the Children’s Crusade, one that has been accepted into

literature and even has inspired modern writers in this century to write about it. However, a

historian cannot simply stand by this information and accept it. The account are too vague, too

enamored in religious undertones and biases. In order to fully understand, a historian asks if

there really was a crusade, whether or not the participants were in fact little children, and where

myth becomes obscured with fact.9

Before we break down the mythistory of the Children’s Crusade, let’s examine the facts.

What actually happened in 1212 that caught the attention of these scholars? One must remember,

little historical investigation has been done concerning the Children’s Crusade. A total of eight

publications have been published, and four are concerned primarily with the critiques of the

primary sources and with rebuilding the narrative of the Children’s Crusade.10 The first of these

published works surfaced in the late 19th century by famous German and French historians.

7 Peter Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” in The Journal of Medieval History (Vol. 3, Issue 4, 1977), 2798 Ibid, 2819 Ibid10 Ibid

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These publications provide a decent summary of the sources, but neither seems interested to

mention the later sources being enamored in myth. In fact, the legendary element of the later

sources wasn’t tackled until the beginning of the 20th century when American medieval historian

Dana Carleton Munro published his work on the Children’s Crusade.11 In order to write these

publications, historians only had chronicles and primary documents to analyze. There weren’t

many, only about 50, ranging from a line to half a page in length. The sources can be divided

into three categories based on time of composition: contemporary sources written from 1212-

1220 at the time of the Children’s Crusade, accounts between 1220 and 1250 written by people

with firsthand knowledge of the crusade, and sources written after 1250 by authors who obtained

their information second or third hand.12

A culmination of study, research, and a little historical investigation has produced what is

now considered the modern view on the occurrences of the Children’s Crusade. The movement

that began in France may not have been part of the actual Children’s Crusade, which took place

in Germany (more on that later). Of course, it was not technically a crusade in the legal sense. It

wasn’t blessed and encouraged by the church; in fact, it was deplored by all responsible

authority.13

We start in France, in the summer of 1212. There, a shepherd boy, named Stephen, from

Cloyes, had a vision of Jesus Christ, who had visited him under the disguise of a poor pilgrim.

Stephen and his followers would trek to Saint Denis, where Stephen reportedly performed many

miracles. Because of this, people hastened to join Stephen and accept him as their leader. But the

king, after consulting with the masters of Paris, ordered the followers to return home. Stephen

11 Ibid12 Ibid, 28213 R.L. Wolff, “The Children’s Crusade,” in The later Crusades 1189-1311(University of Wisconsin, 1969), 330

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and his followers obeyed immediately. However, many people considered this event a sign of

great things which God intended for the world.14

The details of the French Children’s Crusade are meager at best. The annals of St. Peter’s

Abbey record that a movement proceeded from Vendome which invoked a strong response

throughout France, but the name Stephen of Cloyes is never mentioned. It was said that no one

was able to hold the masses in check, but they eventually gave up and returned home because of

starvation.15 No contemporary sources of the Children’s Crusade in France share any evidence

that Stephen and his followers had any intention of making a journey to the Holy Land to free

Jerusalem. All that can be drawn from the sources about the French movement is that

processions or rallies were held in French towns and that there was some sort of journey that was

made to Saint Denis or Paris under the leadership of Stephen.16 Some authors, like Steven

Runciman, claimed there was a connection between the French movement and the bigger

German movement.

Meanwhile tales of Stephen’s preaching had reached the Rhineland. Thechildren of Germany were not to be outdone. A few weeks after Stephenhad started on his mission, a boy called Nicholas, from a Rhineland village,began to preach the same message before the shrine of Three Kings atCologne. Like Stephen, he declared that children could do better than grownmen, and that the sea would give them a path.17

Perhaps the most detailed account on the French crusade is that of Alberic of

Troisfontaines. His account of the French crusade is consistent with Runciman’s work on the

subject. The first part of his account agrees with the information in the early sources that the

14 Ibid15 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 29316 Ibid17 Steven Runciman, “The Children’s Crusade (1212),” in A History of the Crusades, Vol. III (Cambridge, 1951), 139-144.

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movement began in Vendome, where groups of people went towards Paris, where their numbers

ballooned to 30,000. But Alberic’s story changes after that. Alberic describes the crusaders going

from Paris to Marseilles, where two merchants offered to take them to the Holy Land free of

charge, for the love of God. During the crossing, two of the seven ships were shipwrecked off the

island of Saint-Pierre while all the passengers were killed. Alberic claims the other five ships

went to the northern coast of Africa where all the children were sold to Muslim princes and

merchants on the slave market.18 However, many scholars objected Alberic’s stories. This will be

discussed later, when speaking on the mythistory of the Children’s Crusade.

But how does the movement in France compare with the larger movement in Germany?

If France was a hot bed for children crusading, Germany was ground zero. While Stephen and

his followers were demonstrating with processions and chants, followers in the Rhineland had

already taken it to a whole other level.19 Between Easter and Pentecost 1212,20 a mass crusading

movement sprang up in Germany. Thousands of pueri (Latin for child) suddenly abandoned their

homes and began heading south towards Jerusalem. There’s not any clear evidence that anyone

urged this action upon them, as they were certainly going against the wishes of their parents and

friends. When they were asked why they were undertaking this daring mission, as years previous

great armies sought to do the same and failed, they answered that they were obeying God’s will

and that they would do all that is required of them.21 However, several sources identify a leader

for the crusaders. That leader was Nicholas, born in Cologne. Nicholas bared a cross in form of a

Greek Tau, although the chronicler states it was difficult to tell what the cross was made out of.22

The Greek Tau an immensely important Greek symbol. Christian biblical enthusiasts compare it

18 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,”293-29419 Wolff, “The Children’s Crusade,” 33120 Shinners, trans. Medieval Popular Religion, 398-39921 Waitz, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212” in Journal of Medieval History22 Shinners, trans. Medieval Popular Religion, 398-399

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with the Prophet Ezekiel’s “mark upon the foreheads” of those who sighted for the sins of

Jerusalem. Only those marked with the sign of the Tau would be spared from the slaughter of the

wicked (Ezekiel 9:4, 6). So having the “mark” of the Tau was salvific. Those who bore it were

said to be part of an elect, destined to be saved.23 “Nicholas claimed that God would support

them, just as He once supported the Israelites. He would divide the sea so they could cross to the

Holy Land without wetting their feet.”24 Nicholas is mentioned in three chronicles at the time,25

which state that he came from Cologne. However, Nicholas isn’t mentioned at all in either of the

Cologne chronicles. In one of the Cologne chronicles, it mentions the crusading movement

beginning without any preaching. Raedts explains that this discrepancy can be explained if we

assume that the crusading movement began near Cologne, and that Nicholas was not the first

inspirational leader, but later became accepted as leader. He later goes on to explain that if this

were the case, it would explain why Nicholas was never mentioned in the original Cologne

chronicles, but the south German and Austrian authors would thought that he came from

Cologne, for they would have assumed the leader came from where the movement originated.26

The common theme amongst the chroniclers of the Children’s Crusade in Germany is

variety. There are various fragmented chronicles from the crusaders’ journey that make it

difficult for historians to put together a clear picture. This is seen best when trying to make clear

of the crusaders’ journey through the Alps. After moving south through Cologne, then to Trier,

and then a brutally hot adventure in the summer from Speyer to Alsace (many died from heat

exhaustion, hunger and thirst before they were able to cross the Alps), the path of the crusaders if

hard to follow from Alsace into Italy.27 The easiest path for the crusaders would have been over

23 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 10524 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 29025 Waitz, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212” in Journal of Medieval History26 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 29027Ibid, 291

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the Great St. Bernard Pass, however, there is no source mentioning the Children’s Crusade that

has survived from the Swiss Alpine region.28 However, there are mentions of crusade written

from Abbeys south of Munich, and from Austria. According to these authors, the crusaders did

not pass through the Alps into Italy, but followed an eastern route through Austria across the

Brenner River into Lombardy.29 From there, the crusaders made way to Genoa, a city in Italy.

According to the city annalist of Genoa, some seven thousand men, women, and children poured

into Genoa carrying crosses, pilgrim staffs, and travel bags. The next day, many of them left,

perhaps disappointed that Nicholas’ words of God transporting them to the Holy Land didn’t ring

true.30 From Genoa, there is not really any clear path to follow the crusaders.31 The crusade had

been “breaking” up since the beginning of their journey. People were dying, leaving and going

home discouraged, or just stopped at cities along the way, no longer wanting to go on.32 A late

contemporary source speaks of a boatload of crusaders sailing from Pisa; however, nothing was

ever heard of them again.33 Some of them are reported to have gone to Rome, where Pope

Innocent III relieved them of their crusading duties.34 The chronicler of Trier mentions some

crusaders being in Brindisi:

When the children arrived at Brindisi [in southern Italy], the local bishop, sensing something underhanded, did not permit them to cross the sea. ForNicholas’ father sold them to the heathens, and this happened from the evildeed of demons. Because of this, the boy himself died, and his father metmet a bad death back in Cologne. Even more of the children died; for whenthey were on their way people generously aided them, but on their journeyback home they gave them nothing.35

28 Ibid29 Ibid30 Ibid31 Wolff, The later Crusades, 33432 Ibid33 Ibid34 Ibid35 Shinners, trans. Medieval Popular Religion, 398-399

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The chronicler of Trier notes that Nicholas died after his father sold them to the “heathens.”

However, there are conflicting accounts about what happened to Nicholas. Another account

describes Nicholas going on the Fifth Crusade and fighting in the siege of Damietta and finally

returning home safe.36 Despite the difference in claims from the authors, most of them do agree

on one thing: of the thousands who went to Italy, very few of them actually returned.37

One of the more polarizing concepts of the Children’s Crusade is the way the story has

been told throughout the course of history. Like mentioned earlier, not a lot of records exist

concerning the Children’s Crusade. This lack of information has helped form the “myth” of the

Children’s Crusade. According to Gary Dickson, man is such a producer of myths, and myths are

such a basic element of group cohesion, that historians, sharing the assumptions their audiences,

and addressing their concerns, cannot help but write “mythistory.”38 So to speak, it’s just a fancy

way of saying that events concerning the Children’s Crusade haven’t been defamed, but

outgrown, transfigured.39 Perhaps the modern mythistory of the Children’s Crusade starts in the

1960s of all places. U.S. anti-war activism in the 60’s brought up lots of comparisons to a

Children’s Crusade. So much in fact, that George Zabriskie Gray’s 1870 book The Children’s

Crusade was reprinted, unrevised in 1972 despite it being of “amateurish scholarship.”40

Journalist and political activist Thomas Powers celebrated the re-release of the book with the

endorsement that it needed no revision, citing nothing of importance had been learned about the

Children’s Crusade since the first release of Gray’s book. Never mind the fact that eight

substantial essays had been written on the subject and had made Gray’s inadequacies

36 Wolff, The later Crusades, 33537 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 29038 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 339 Ibid, 640 Ibid, 7

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“embarrassingly clear.”41 Gray’s book may have marked the beginning of the modern “myth” of

the Children’s Crusade. But, however amateurish Gray’s work might have been, he certainly

didn’t make up his own stories and present them as fact. How did this “mythistory” of the

Children’s Crusade reach George Gray?

Mythistory isn’t a fabrication of events; it’s just a better told story. One of the biggest

debates relating to the Children’s Crusade deals with the children, or pueri (most chronicles refer

to the crusaders as this). Were they were really children? The popular image of the Children’s

Crusade is of prepubescent kids journeying across Europe to liberate the Holy Land with love.

Historians realize this is an amazing claim. Is it plausible? Not really.42 Historian Giovanni

Miccoli was one of the first to question the idea that thousands of little children went off on

crusade. He thought it was merely impossible to conclude from the contemporary sources that

the participants in the Children’s Crusade were small children, noting that various terms were

used to indicate the participants in the crusade.43 Like stated earlier, the most common term to

refer to the children was puer, which can be translated into “child,” or “boy.”44 However, Raedts

points out that even if pueri did mean only children in the modern sense, they certainly weren’t

the only ones involved in the Children’s Crusade. Doubts arise when you look at the Marbach

chronicle which states there weren’t only children but also adults and “married” children.45

Raedts concludes that the term pueri could have included people as old as 28 years, and thus

impossible to determine the age of the pueri exactly.46 Also, the term pueri could also have been

41 Ibid, 942 Cecil Adams, “Is the Children’s Crusade fact or fable?,” (July 9, 2004), http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2503/is-the-childrens-crusade-fact-or-fable43 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 29544 Giovanni Miccoli, “The Children’s Crusade,” in Medieval Studies Journal (1961), 43045 Cooke, The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, 35446 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 296

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referring to a social class. It’s possible that when referring to pueri, the chroniclers were

speaking of members of the lower class.47

Another example of the “mythistorization” of the Children’s Crusade comes from the pen

of the chronicler Salimbene de Adam who was born nine years after the conclusion of the

Children’s Crusade. In the 1280s while writing his chronicle, he lifted all of his passage on the

pueri from the Codex Estensis:48

In that same year of 1212, three boys of about twelve years of age…tookthe cross as crusaders in the region of Cologne. Persuaded by them, aninnumerable multitude of paupers of both sexes and children took the crossjourneyed from Germany into Italy. With one voice and one heart, they saidthat they would cross the sea dryshod and restore the Holy Land of Jerusalemto God’s kingdom. But the entire multitude simply disappeared. In that same year there was a famine so severe…that mothers even ate their own children49

A contemporary Peterborough chronicler especially makes note of the line which states “three

boys of about twelve years of age.” The chronicler likewise states that of the estimated 15,000

pueri, “none was older than twelve.”5051 This claim directly goes against the chroniclers of

Cologne, who stated that “many thousands of Children from six years old all the way to young

manhood…”52 Also, mentioning a famine so severe that “mothers even ate their own children”

most likely didn’t happen. Instead it refers to the crusaders who never returned. Figuratively

speaking, they were eaten, consumed, devoured.53

However, the ‘children’ involved in the Children’s Crusade continues to be the most

embellished part of the entire ordeal. In his chronicle of Genoa written between 1295 and 1297,

47 Ibid48 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 13549 Salimbene de Adam, Vol. 1, pg. 44, in The Chronicle, trans. Joseph L. Baird, 50 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 13451 Ibid52 Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion, 398-39953 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 135

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Archbishop James of Varagine embellished the story of the pueri with mythistorical details.54

James mentions that the pueri were mostly sons of nobles whom their “fathers had provided with

wet-nurses.”55 The aristocratic status of these pueri in question seems to be a mythistorical

flourish. His comment towards their noble birth seems to be highly improbable because no other

chronicler can confirm the claim in their works. However, Varagine’s claims were taken to heart

by Genoese historians that wanted to believe some of their fellow citizens came from noble

backgrounds. This only adds to the “myth” of the Children’s Crusade.56

More controversy arises from the pueri, and their supposed innocence. Some medieval

chroniclers referred to the pueri as “infants” or “little ones.”57 Of course, throughout centuries,

one of the more appealing qualities of the young was their purity.58 In fact, that’s where the word

puer comes from. It was said that a child is called a puer because he/she is pura, or pure.59

Chroniclers playing up pueri innocence was not a rare occurrence. Lots of comparisons were

made between the pueri and the Holy Innocents,60 children who were two years or younger that

were slaughtered on the order of King Herod,61 and were considered the first Christian martyrs.

In Alberic of Trois-Fontaine’s account of the Children’s Crusade, Alberic claims that Pope

Gregory IX had a church built to house the uncorrupted bodies of the pueri who were lost at sea.

This church was dedicated in memory of the “New Innocents.”62 Figuratively speaking, the pueri

were the “New Innocents,” and in the eyes of Alberic, an equal to the Holy Innocents (despite

54 Ibid, 13755 Ibid56Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 13757 Ibid58 Ibid59 Raedts, “The Children’s Crusade of 1212,” 2960 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 13861 Matthew 2:16-1862 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 137

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not being infants).63 Another chronicler also compared the starving pueri begging for bread to the

Holy Innocents who were killed for Christ.64 According to Dickson, the mere mentioning of the

pueri in relation to the Holy Innocents at that time is startling. It only more evidence of the

mythistorization of the pueri, as these chroniclers quickly rushed these youthful crusaders into

exalted company.65

“Imagination always exerts a gravitational pull on historical events, bending them into

confabulations, fictions, myths.”66 The history of the Children’s Crusade is awash with

mythistory. So much indeed, that the mythistory of the Children’s Crusade has become part of its

history. The fragmentary texts of the chroniclers intrigue us with what they say, and frustrate us

with their silence.67 So much so, that the social memory of the social memory of the Children’s

Crusade is largely grounded in its mythistory, not its history.

63 Dickson, The Children’s Crusade, 13864 Ibid65 Ibid66 Ibid, xiii67 Ibid, 15