Was The Children's Crusade Justified

The Crusades were started as an attempt by Pope Urban II to regain Jerusalem from the Muslims in order for the Catholic Church to regain their Holy Land. In 1212, following the Fourth Crusade’s failure to acquire the Holy Land and only succeed in trashing Constantinople, another crusade began, but this crusade lacked the public support that the other crusades had. This crusade was the Children’s Crusade, the pilgrims of which were thousands of children of various ages. The crusade lacked real funding and was not supported by the pope, but the crusaders believed that Divine Intervention was guiding them and kept trekking towards Jerusalem, which resulted in the deaths of nearly everyone involved. I shall endeavor to not only examine every mistake …show more content…
The Children's Crusade arose out of the belief that goodness can conquer evil and innocence can obliterate iniquity, and the preacher Alan of Lille argued that a crusade would only succeed if it were inspired by poor people, who like Jesus had nowhere to lay their heads. Stephen, a twelve year old shepherd boy, went to the King of France and explained how Christ himself had been revealed to him and how Stephen how been instructed to preach the crusade that would later be known as the Children’s Crusade. Stephen had intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, and the bands of children who had flocked to him marched to Marseilles, where the sea that kept them from the Holy Land would dry, allowing them to cross. When the crusaders eventually reached the sea, many of them having already died due to …show more content…
However, blame for the crusade could still be placed on the parents of the crusaders, or the priests involved for not advising the children to not begin the crusade, but the publication of Paul L. Williams’ The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades blew a huge hole in that claim. The children's army proceeded to Rome to petition the help of Pope Innocent III, who weeped when he saw them and told them to go back to their homes. This reveals that the children were directly told by the pope to abandon their cause, but they ignored him and kept going. Although completely accurate accounts of these events are difficult to find, since nearly everyone directly involved didn’t live to tell about it, the strange idea of the children’s crusade continues to fascinate both the historical and religious communities. While the intents of the children’s crusade can be admired, the poor execution of it results in it being remembered as an unsupported failure that caused the deaths of thousands of children, and the blame should definitely be placed on those who “led” the