In 1095, Pope Urban II, at the Clermont Cathedral, called upon to reclaim the Holy Land from the infidels at all costs. Moreover, punishment with fire and sword was required not only for Muslims, but also for representatives of other religions. After this call, the delicate balance in Europe broke. People were seized by a real religious psychosis. And he was actively supported by their sermons and local clergymen. The Jews were the first to be hit. Crowds of motley poor peasants united in gangs and began their "holy war", which is commonly called the Peasant Crusade. And at the head of the embittered mass was Peter the Hermit, a hermit monk.
Mass hysteria
Pope Urban II did not expect such agility from the slaves of God. He hoped that the rabid crowd would officially go on the First Crusade on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin on August 15, but the poor were so eager to recapture the Holy Land that they headed for Jerusalem much earlier than planned. The army was made up mainly of peasants and impoverished knights, who saw the only opportunity to improve their plight during the campaign, or die for the faith, so whoever is lucky.
It must be said that before the call for a campaign, Europe was severely "stormy" for several years. In a short time span, people had to endure drought, famine, and plague. These events put pressure on the minds of the people, forcing the survivors to think about imminent imminent death. And in 1095, several more unusual natural phenomena occurred, such as a lunar eclipse and a meteor shower. Their priests quickly turned to their advantage, declaring that this is God's blessing for a campaign against the unbelievers. And the exhausted, tired and frightened people believed. It is not known exactly what all people took part in the Peasant Campaign. According to researchers, their number ranged from one hundred to three hundred thousand. Moreover, the army was made up not only of men, but women with children.
Naturally, the army had to have a leader. And such was found in the face of the hermit monk Peter of Amiens, who was nicknamed the Hermit. To enhance the effect, he dressed up in white robes, saddled a horse and traveled through northern France and Flanders, promoting the crusade with all his might. Peter was distinguished by his ability to lead and lead a crowd, his speeches were listened to with open mouths. And therefore, it is not surprising that it was the Hermit that the peasants began to perceive not just as a leader, but as a full-fledged prophet of God. Peter himself actively supported this legend, telling everyone that Christ personally sent him on the path of preaching. So gradually a motley crowd began to gather around the Hermit, where the wild, illiterate and poor people became the main force, who saw only an opportunity to enrich themselves in the campaign to Jerusalem. There were some truly religious pilgrims among them, but their number was significantly inferior to the dregs of society. But Peter, of course, did not pay attention. The main thing is quantity, not quality.
About Peter himself, I must say, there is not much information. It is known that he was born in Amiens around 1050. First he served in the army, then he got into religion. Communicating with the clergy, Peter was fired up with the idea of expelling Muslims and other gentiles from the Holy Land. Therefore, the appeal of Urban II became a real "finest hour" for him. And although the Pope was officially at the head of the campaign, in fact, it was the puny and pitiful-looking Peter that became its leader. The people did not pay attention to his appearance, people saw in him a powerful inner strength. Hermit's contemporaries said that his mind was "quick and perceptive, spoke pleasantly and fluently." By the way, there is a version that it was the Hermit who became almost the ideological inspirer of the crusade. During his travels, he reached Palestine, where he saw that the local Christians were in a terrible situation. They urgently needed help. And Peter made a meeting with the Jerusalem Patriarch Simon. He, having listened to the hermit monk, only shrugged his shoulders and advised him to turn to the "lord-pope and the Roman Church, the kings and princes of the West." The hermit did not retreat and was soon in Rome at a reception with Pope Urban II. He listened to Peter and promised every assistance. So, in fact, the crusade was announced.
Peter's chief assistant also appeared. It was the French knight Walter, who was head over heels in poverty. And that's why he got the telling nickname "Golyak". He commanded the army, turning a blind eye to the antics of his "charges". The fact is that the army of God, which went to the Holy Land, went, so to speak, light. More precisely, the poor were simply not able to take with them either supplies or a wagon train. They "forgot" and take discipline with them. The crowd, like an avalanche of hungry rats, went to the East, destroying and sweeping away everything in its path. They plundered villages, killed for their own benefit and did not obey orders. Moreover, not only the Gentiles suffered from their actions, but also the Christians themselves, who refused to sponsor the crusade.
Among historians there is one curious version concerning the organization of the Peasant Crusade. Some believe that thousands of poor people were deliberately sent to the East to die. Thus, the top of the Roman Catholic Church, hiding behind a good reason, got rid of the "extra mouths", which were too many in Europe.
Europe in blood
But the path to Jerusalem was not close, the soldiers of God first had to go through Europe itself. As soon as the army was formed, pogroms and murders began. Mostly Jews suffered, whom Pope Urban II, without the slightest pity, threw to be torn apart by the poor crusaders. Disagreements between Christians and Jews began even before the official call of the pope. It is known that in the summer of 1095 bloody clashes occurred in the Jewish communities of France. But then somehow the clergy managed to create the illusion of a peaceful existence. But in 1096, Urban's words left the Jews defenseless. The Church, having launched the flywheel of religious hysteria, could no longer influence the behavior of Christians. The priests just had to watch the pogroms and killings.
The people took Urban's words literally. For Christians, Jews have become as much enemies as Muslims. They were reminded of the rejection of the "right" church, as well as the crucifixion of Christ. Particularly zealous took up the eradication of the Jews in France and Germany. In these countries, influential people also provided all kinds of support to the commoners in the "holy war". For example, the French duke Gottfried of Bouillon said: "to go on this campaign only after avenging the blood of the crucified by the shedding of Jewish blood, the complete extermination of those who are called Jews, thus softening the wrath of God." And this is what the chronicler Sigebert of Gembloux wrote: “Until the Jews are baptized, a war for the glory of God cannot break out. Those who refuse should be deprived of their rights, killed and expelled from the cities."
For some time, Christians completely forgot about the Holy Land, Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher. Why go to distant lands, if here, one might say, enemies live on the next street? Here is what the Jewish chronicler Samson wrote about these events: “… passing through the places where the Jews lived, they said to one another: here we are going on a long journey to look for a house of shame and take revenge on the Ismailites, but the Jews living among us, whose fathers killed him and crucified him for nothing. We will avenge them first, and we will exterminate them from the nations, and the name of Israel will no longer be remembered, or they will be like us and recognize the son of evil."
But not only revenge for Christ was guided by the newly appeared crusaders. While this was hidden, the main reason for the hysteria about the Jews was their wealth. Christians knew very well that Jewish communities live very well, they had a lot of money. The success of the Gentiles was due to the initial attitude of the authorities. The Jews were allowed to live in isolation and engage in a very profitable business - usury. But for Catholics this, let's say, "gold mine" was banned. The Christians also remembered this as a Jew, wrapping their thirst for profit in a wrapper of class hatred. It was the attack on the Jews that became the easiest, fastest and safest way for the poor to get rich. Some were simply robbed, others were taken hostage and demanded fabulous ransoms. The share of those crusaders who themselves got into debt was also great, and therefore they dealt with yesterday's creditors without the slightest regret. In general, the fight against infidels was in full swing. As in an old cynical joke: the bank is on fire, the mortgage is extinguished.
True, not all European leaders supported the pope's call to crack down on all infidels. For example, Emperor Henry IV ordered his clergy and dukes to provide maximum support to the Jewish communities. The above-mentioned Gottfried of Bouillon also fell under this order. But it was almost impossible to contain the crowd of thousands of Christian poor. They did not even listen to their leader, Peter of Amiens. But he, I must say, did not conduct anti-Jewish propaganda and believed that the Jews should take part in the crusade financially. They didn’t mind, but the money didn’t help. On the contrary, the more the newly minted soldiers of Christ were paid, the more their appetites grew. The bishops, who received money from the Jews for protection, did not help either.
The first to suffer were the communities in Rouen and Cologne, that is, in the cities in which the Peasant Crusade started. Then the wave reached Mainz. Christians did not confine themselves to plunder, they tried to kill all the Gentiles. Realizing that there was not even the slightest chance of salvation, many Jews committed mass suicide. They did not even leave small children alive, because they knew that the crusaders would deal with them as cruelly as possible. The same bloody story took place in Moselle, Trier, Speyer and Worms.
It is known that the soldiers of Christ reached Worms in mid-May. And at first they tried to restrain their aggression. But then there was a rumor that the Jews killed the Christian, and his corpse was used to poison the water in the wells. This turned out to be enough, because the crusaders needed only an excuse for reprisal, the truth did not interest anyone. The bishop, who regularly received payments from the Jews, tried to hide them in one of the fortresses. But the crowd learned of this and began a siege. The bishop tried to change the situation, but he failed. The Jewish community was almost completely destroyed. It is known that about eight hundred people died in the massacre. Some were killed by Europeans, others committed suicide, as they were faced with the choice of "baptism or death."
The ten thousandth army of crusaders arrived in Mainz. Local bishop Ruthard hid over a thousand Jews in his castle. But the local Count Emikho Leiningen stated that he had a vision. They say, from the Almighty, he received an order to baptize the Jews or kill them. The crowd enthusiastically received Leiningen's speech, especially its closing part. Another interesting thing: not all the high ranks and ordinary residents of Mainz were delighted with the destruction of the Gentiles. Not succumbing to general hysteria, they defended the bishop's castle. But the forces were not equal. In the end, the soldiers of Christ burst inside and staged a massacre. Almost all the Jews whom Ruthard hid were killed. Some, however, still managed to escape then. But they were caught and executed after only a few days. The Jewish historian and astronomer wrote: “In that year, a wave of pogroms and persecution swept across Germany, France, Italy, Spain, England, Hungary and Bohemia. This persecution was unprecedented in its brutality."
Leaving a bloody trail behind them, the crusaders still managed to get to Hungary. The first were the soldiers commanded by Walter Golyak. King Kalman I The Scribe was aware of the approaching army of the crowd, distraught with greed, greed and anger. And so he pulled his troops to the border. This was followed by a meeting between Walter and the Hungarian king. Kalman agreed to let the soldiers of God through their lands and even promised to provide them with financial support, but put forward a condition - the strictest observance of order and discipline. Golyak, of course, agreed, although he perfectly understood that he was not able to cope with his soldiers. By the way, among them was the aforementioned Emikho Leiningen. He, not giving a damn about Walter's order, began to conduct his own, let's say, "foreign policy." Namely: his soldiers began to plunder villages and kill people. The Czech prince Břetislav II stood up to defend his land. He managed to defeat Leiningen's detachment and reported this to the King of Hungary. In parallel, several more detachments of crusaders began to plunder and kill. Kalman's reaction was harsh and brutal. His soldiers inflicted a painful defeat on the soldiers of Christ. And so they walked the rest of the way quietly and calmly. And to Constantinople Walter brought only a few hundred hungry, angry and tired people who resembled robbers rather than soldiers of God.
Then the crusaders under the leadership of Peter of Amiens approached Hungary. They knew about what had happened to their predecessors, so they behaved in a friendly manner, to the best of their ability, of course.
Holy Land
One way or another, but in the fall of 1096, an impressive army gathered near Constantinople - about one hundred and eighty thousand people. But there was no need to talk about their fighting qualities. The emperor of Byzantium Alexei Komnin saw hordes of angry and tortured people who were ready to commit any crime for profit. Naturally, it posed a serious threat to Byzantium. Komnenos thought that the Pope had sent professional soldiers to him to fight the infidels, but instead the ragamuffins came. It was clear that the Europeans would not be able to oppose anything to the Muslim warriors. Therefore, the appearance of the army of Peter and Walter was perceived as a mockery and a personal insult.
The crusaders stayed at the walls of Constantinople for several weeks. During this time, they made several raids on nearby villages and even on the city itself. And the soldiers robbed not only merchant shops, but also churches, although the Byzantines tried in every possible way to appease the European "partners". And Alexei Komnin is tired of it. The Byzantine fleet ferried the crusaders across the Bosphorus and landed on the opposite bank. The army camped near Civitot. But even here Peter failed to unite the scattered gangs into one army. Soon the detachments began to leave, let's say, in free swimming. They scattered across the Muslim lands, thinking that they would be as easy to deal with as they were to the Jews. None of them even suspected what a strong adversary they were facing. And the beggar knight Renaud de Bray, who stood at the head of a large gang, decided to take the bull by the horns and seize Nicaea, the capital of the Seljuks. On the way, de Bray even managed to capture the fortress, which only strengthened his belief in unconditional victory. True, he did not attach importance to the fact that it was guarded by a small and weak garrison.
Sultan Kylych-Arslan I did not want to waste time on the ragamuffins, so he decided to deal with them with one blow. First, he destroyed de Bray's detachment, then, with the help of spies, spread the rumor that Nicaea had been taken by the Franks. The crusaders reacted exactly as the sultan needed. They went to the city. And on October 21, 1096, the soldiers of God were ambushed on the Nicene road. The battle as such did not happen, the Seljuks simply defeated the Europeans. Several tens of thousands of crusaders died, many were captured. Walter Golyak also laid down his head in that battle. This is how the Peasant Crusade ended ingloriously.
Interestingly, Peter of Amiens did not take part in that battle. As soon as the crusaders dug in Civitota, he hurried to get out of there, because he understood that his soldiers were not residents in this world. The hermit joined the army of Gottfried of Bouillon and was taken prisoner in 1098. True, he soon managed to free himself and return to his homeland. In Picardy, the Hermit founded the Augustinian monastery and was its abbot until his death. And he died in 1115.
