The Children’s Crusade
WHAT WAS THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE?
The Children’s Crusade is said to have been a failed popular (meaning not sanctioned by the Pope) crusade of 1212, mainly made up of children, with the intent of taking back Jerusalem. It is said to have been inspired by the crusades of Western European Christians to reclaim the Holy Land between the 11th and 13th centuries. The tale of the Children’s Crusade is one that is caught between fact and fiction, though. There are few first-hand sources to attest to this particular crusade, and those we do have may have been written well after the event or embellished.
WHAT WERE THE CRUSADES?
Between 1096 and 1291, there were a number of attempts by European Christians to reclaim the city of Jerusalem
