In 1212 a young shepherd boy, Stephen of France, claimed that, on a hillside near Cloyes, God had appeared to him in a vision and had told him that only innocent children could drive the infidels from the Holy Land and had also given him a letter for King Philip of France. The horrified king denied permission for the children's crusade and ordered the boy to return home.
Despite the royal command Stephen instead travelled the French countryside preaching a crusade, a show of such zeal and inspiration that it attracted children from all parts of France, most of whom were younger than 12, and a few adults too. In merry earnest, singing and praying, they followed Stephen through France to Marseilles. Some died on the way but around 30,000 entered the city with him. There they waited, half-starved and footsore, for God to part the waters of the Mediterranean Sea so they could continue their march to Jerusalem.
Before long a series of opportunist mechants began to load the children into rotting ships for a "free transport to the Holy Land". Those ships that didn't sink finally made the shores of Egypt where the children were sold into slavery.
The news of Stephen's preaching had, meanwhile, reached Germany and fired the imagination of of a boy called Nicholas. He began to gather together a band of German children - in general some years older than the French group - under the banner of unarmed conquest; he preached a victory by conversion to Christianity of the infidels.
Nicholas led thousands of young crusaders over the Alps to Rome, but less than a third of them lived through the ordeal. At Rome Pope Innocent III gently ordered them home; but most were too worn out to make the return journey. They took refuge in villages along the way, never reaching their own homes in Germany.
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