User:Andtheseashalltell/sandbox

Introduction

The Children's Crusade is the name most commonly given for either of two events which occured in western Europe during the spring and summer of 1212. Because the source material for these events is extremely limited and was not widely available prior to the twentieth century, the record has become heavily distorted by a number of popular myths, all of which touch upon, but do not encompass, the truth of what actually happened.  Background

After the fiasco that was the Fourth Crusade, the nature of the crusading movement changed dramatically. Although the religious fervor of the crusaders themselves remained intact, as a political force the crusade had become largely discredited. Never again would the Popes prove able to marshal the kind of large, multinational forces which had so characterized the earlier crusades, nor would any crusade prove capable of securing the kind of territorial gains which had made the early crusade so spectacularly successful. Instead, the crusades of the thirteenth century--of which there were no less than eight--became smaller and more limited in scope, as one leader or another tried to secure a specific territorial objective, rather than the wholesale liberation of the Holy Land. By the end of the thirteenth century, the rise of the large cavalry armies of the Mongols and Mameluks had rendered the small armies of the crusaders

France

The first of the so-called "Childrens' Crusades" began in France, in May 1212, when a young peasant boy named Stephen appeared at the royal court in Orléans and requested an audience with the king. He bore with him a letter that, he claimed, had been given to him by Christ himself. Apparently, the boy was of the belief that who had appeared to him one day as he was tending to his sheep and had bidden him to go on Crusade. Unsurprisingly, the king was unmoved by this story and the child was told to return home.

Germany

Legend

The legend of the Children's Crusade has far outgrown the original scope of events.