People's Crusade
Prelude to the First Crusade (April–October 1096) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about People's Crusade?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The People's Crusade was the beginning phase of the First Crusade whose objective was to retake the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, from Islamic rule. In 1095 the head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Urban II started to urge faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the People's Crusade was conducted for roughly six months from April to October 1096. It is also known as the Peasants' Crusade, Paupers' Crusade or the Popular Crusade as it was executed by a mainly untrained peasant army prior to the main church-organized crusade. It was led primarily by Peter the Hermit with forces of Walter Sans Avoir. The peasant army of this crusade was destroyed by the forces of the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan at the Battle of Civetot in northwestern Anatolia.
People's Crusade | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the First Crusade | |||||||
The defeat of the People's Crusade Illustration by Jean Colombe (from Passages d'outremer) | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
West European Catholics | Sultanate of Rum | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Kilij Arslan[3] | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
20,000 crusaders[4] (initially 40,000)[5] | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Extremely high; near-complete destruction[6] | Relatively low |
The People's Crusade was the first, largest, and best documented of the popular crusades. The start of the more official and fully church-backed crusade, also called the "Princes' Crusade", occurred a few months later and was better organized, better armed, and better funded.