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Causes Of The Crusades

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The Crusade of Children The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Muslims and Christians for Jerusalem, the Holy Land. These wars started when the Byzantine Emperor wanted to regain Jerusalem and Constantinople and to accomplish this, he allied with the Count of Flanders. There was a total of nine Crusades, but not all of them were battles. In 1212, somewhere between the fourth and fifth crusades there was a peasant revolt. This revolt was presumably spurred by the many failed crusades in the previous years as well as the desire to regain the Holy Land. Incredibly, this revolt was made up of thousands of children. Although it is called “The Children’s Crusade”, is not considered a crusade for two main reasons: it was made of …show more content…

When the water didn't budge some of the children's faith was lost and they tried to wander back home, with very few children actually ending up where they had started. But from the huge port of Marseilles, quite a few of the children were lured onto ships, where they were captured and sold as slaves by sailors and were never seen again. As before mentioned there were two groups in the Children's Crusade, the second being the German children. This group was gathered up much like the first, but instead of Stephen of Cloyes it was led by a young German boy called Nicholas of Colongne. He did the same as Stephen but only gathered about 20,000 children. The journey they planned was to march to Rome and meet the pope, but to do that they had to cross the Alps. The trek was treacherous and grueling, killing thousands of children. Many died from starvation like in Stephen's group but because of the cruel weather and the children’s inadequate comprehension and preparation countless more children died in Nicholas’s group. Once they got over the mountains they started on their way to Rome, with many children choosing to stop and settle in the italian villages and towns they had stopped at temporarily. The army of children lost about a thousand to villages where they had chosen to take on a new life. In fact, a huge chunk of the group of German children decided

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