Chapter 17: The Children's Crusade 

“In this year occurred an outstanding thing… unheard of throughout the ages.”

 – Royal Chronicle of Cologne¹³⁰

In Europe, news of the conquest of Constantinople was greeted with mixed emotions. On the one hand, they now had a well-fortified city to serve as a launching pad for future campaigns to the Holy Land. On the other hand, this was more than counterbalanced by the shameful way in which they had achieved it. Even the most optimistic accounts couldn't hide the fact that the crusaders had openly defied everyone from the pope to their own leaders, been excommunicated twice, and irreparably damaged relations with eastern Christendom. 

If the Fourth Crusade was a tragic farce, what followed was simply bizarre. Popular enthusiasm for saving the Holy Land remained undimmed, and – thanks largely to the work of apocalyptic preachers – a series of peasant movements began throughout France. These are collectively known as the 'Children's Crusade', although strictly speaking they were neither a proper crusade nor an army of children. 

The fact that only the First Crusade – which lacked the participation of kings – had succeeded wasn't lost on medieval Europe. Christ had ministered specifically to the poor, spending his time with prostitutes and the downtrodden. It was the humble, he had preached, who would inherit the earth. Perhaps the reason that princes and popes had failed was because Christ was calling the weak to do his work here on earth. 

In 1212, these ideas crystallized around a young German shepherd named Nicholas of Cologne. He claimed to have had a vision instructing him to march south into Italy. When he reached the shore, the waters of the Mediterranean would miraculously part, allowing Nicholas and his followers to walk to Jerusalem. There they would liberate the Holy City by peacefully converting the Muslims to Christianity. 

This message proved enormously popular and before long Nicholas had attracted a following of thousands.¹³¹ They were a motley collection of the dregs of society: children, women, priests, and the elderly, united by their poverty and their belief in their cause. Wherever they went they were greeted as champions – an intoxicating brew for people more used to scorn – and showered with gifts. Members of the clergy who expressed doubts were roundly mocked, and each village added to the number. 

The first signs of trouble came during the crossing of the Alps. The weather was stiflingly hot, food began to run out, and there was little or no organization. Most of the participants assumed that God would provide any needed supplies. Needless to say, casualties were horrendous: as many as two thirds of the 'crusaders' abandoned the march or died crossing the mountains. 

When the survivors reached Italy, the entire crusade fell apart. Some headed to various Italian ports, others attempted to reach the pope in Rome. Nicholas himself made it to Genoa in the late summer, but his claim to be a latter-day Moses spectacularly failed when the waters refused to part. After a few weeks spent waiting for a miracle, the group dispersed, hoping to find passage to the Holy Land. One group made it as far as Marseilles, where two merchants offered to take them to Jerusalem, free of charge. The grateful pilgrims boarded the ships and were promptly transported to Alexandria and sold in the slave markets. 

Few of those who left ever saw their homes again. Those who made it back across the Alps were greeted with ridicule, mocked for their naiveté and lack of faith. Nicholas certainly never saw Germany again, most likely dying in an attempt to re-cross the mountains. He was blamed for the entire fiasco, and his father was lynched by angry neighbors whose relatives had followed the boy to their deaths. 

Innocent III viewed the entire thing as yet another tragedy. He had interviewed several members of the 'crusade', thanked them for their piety, and advised them to return to their homes. As far as he was concerned, the only good thing about it was that it showed that there was still interest in crusading. 

Calling the 5th Crusade

The pope had been interested in calling another crusade for some time. He was fully aware of the contradictions of the Fourth Crusade, and saw the need to immediately give aid to the remnants of Outremer. The Islamic threat was something against which the entire strength of Christendom needed to be marshaled. Even now, the scimitar was poised to strike the final blow against the crusader states. A great Muslim fortress had been constructed on Mount Tabor – the site of the Transfiguration of Christ – and the enemy was preparing the final assault on the Latin East. 

Every Christian had a part to play. The nobility would do the actual fighting, but the energy of the poor could also be harnessed as well. They could pray for the success of the crusade and reap the benefits as well. In a brilliant bit of political theater, Innocent III started handing out crosses to anyone who pledged to materially or spiritually support the crusade. Now everyone, from the poorest widow to the wealthiest Duke, was invested in the success of the venture. 

The southern Italian port of Brindisi was picked as the rendezvous point, and the date of June 1, 1217 given as the official start of the crusade. Innocent III committed the papacy to a contribution of thirty thousand pounds of silver and imposed a five percent tax on all clergy. Merchants were ordered to stop trading with eastern ports, and encouraged to donate their services as troop transports. Finally, indulgences were handed out to anyone who offered to finance a potential crusader. This last arrangement was particularly popular among both laity and clergy alike since it opened up the spiritual benefits of the crusade to those who couldn’t – or didn’t want to – attend in person. There was already a groundswell of popular support for the crusade and Innocent III had stumbled on a way to financially tap into it. Pious donations poured into church coffers.¹³²

It wasn't long before Europe's nobility responded. Duke Leopold of Austria and King Andrew of Hungary took the cross, along with a slew of lesser nobility. All of these magnates were overshadowed, however, by the electrifying news that Frederick II Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor himself, had pledged to liberate Jerusalem. 

Frederick II Barbarossa

There was simply no one like Frederick. On his mother's side he was a Norman, heir to the fabulously wealthy Italian kingdom of Sicily. On his father's he was German, the rightful successor to the sprawling Holy Roman Empire. Between these two thrones, Frederick controlled nearly a third of Western Europe. But it was his curiosity that really set him apart. 

He had an insatiable thirst for knowledge of the physical world. He collected animal specimens, the more exotic the better, from places far beyond his Mediterranean home. By the end of his reign the royal menagerie in Sicily boasted, among other things, elephants, giraffes, leopards, panthers, bears, a white cockatoo from the Sultan of Cairo, and several Arctic falcons from Greenland. Everything was approached with a scientific eye. Diets were analyzed, animals were systematically observed, and Frederick even composed several treatises on falconry, where he carefully classified migration patterns, nesting habits, and daily behaviors. 

This curiosity extended to humans as well. In an attempt to discover the function of the stomach and intestines Frederick personally dissected several cadavers. According to a contemporary monk, he then took it a step further, disemboweling two men after a feast to see if activity or rest caused the food to be digested more efficiently. Perhaps his most famous experiment was a linguistic one. In an attempt to discover what humanity's natural language was, he ordered two nursemaids to raise their charges in complete silence. His guess was Hebrew, since that was the language of Genesis, but regrettably, both children are said to have died before the experiment could be completed. 

Scholars from every nation were invited to his court. Experts in arithmetic, geometry, and algebra all wrote treatises dedicated to him. This wasn't simple flattery. Frederick – unlike virtually anyone else at the time – was perfectly willing to criticize the venerated authorities of the past if his observations contradicted their conclusions. There was little use in trying to butter up a man whose censure not even Aristotle could completely escape. Rather, the dedications were a sign of patronage. Frederick was creating an international community of scholars. In many ways he was a Renaissance prince two centuries before the Renaissance. 

Indeed, he wouldn't have been at all out of place had he lived in the time of Michelangelo and da Vinci. Conversant in all six major languages of his various territories, he was also an accomplished poet whose writings played an integral part in the development of modern Italian. A gifted statesman and an enlightened ruler, he founded one of Western Europe’s oldest universities and banned torture and trial by ordeal because they violated the principle of reason. 

Frederick set up a medical academy that licensed prospective doctors, and personally endowed it with a collection of priceless texts so that students (as he put it) might 'draw new water out of old wells.' Interested students were invited to attend at his expense, they were protected by his imperial guards when they traveled, and they were offered cheap, subsidized loans to cover any additional costs. 

Somehow, in between running two governments, Frederick found the time to author several treatises on medicine, instruct veterinarians on the proper care of horses, attend the lectures of the most celebrated of his professors, and even become a practicing physician. His court became the intellectual center of Europe, and his palaces – which he personally designed – were filled to the brim with art in styles borrowed from locations as varied as North Africa and Byzantium. No wonder his dazzled subjects called him Stupor Mundi – the 'Astonishment of the World'. 

When Frederick announced that he was taking the cross at an emotional ceremony in the German city of Mainz, therefore, it caused considerable excitement. His addition to the effort – along with the upper nobility of the empire who would presumably join as well – would greatly strengthen the crusade. 

Ironically, the person least excited about the news was Innocent III. Frederick II was the last person he wanted to join the crusade. The reasons for this were mostly political. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the lands directly to the north of Rome, and the kingdom of Sicily controlled the lands to the south. Traditionally, popes had used the southern kingdom as a check against over-eager emperors, but that was no longer possible. Frederick – as both emperor and Sicilian king – represented the papal nightmare. Rome was completely surrounded in an imperial sea. 

Because of this, Innocent had done everything in his power to prevent Frederick from inheriting both of his thrones. There was nothing he could do about Sicily. Frederick had been crowned at the age of two, and there was no other serious candidate. The empire, however, was another story. Innocent III threw his support behind a rival claimant named Otto of Brunswick, crowning him emperor in 1209. 

The resulting civil war delayed the inevitable, but by 1215, it was clearly only a matter of time before Otto conceded defeat. Frederick's dramatic taking of the cross, was both an olive branch and a warning to Rome. In reality, he cared little about Christianity and even less about the crusade. He privately referred to Christians as 'swine' who had polluted Jerusalem, and – in a swipe at the world's three major religions – reportedly said that Moses, Christ, and Muhammed were imposters who had duped humanity. 

It was hard to imagine a less suitable leader of a crusade. He kept a well-stocked harem, seemed far more comfortable among his Muslim subjects than his Christian ones, and occasionally openly mocked the faith of the Catholic components of his own army.¹³³ 

Fortunately, Innocent III was spared seeing his adversary take control of his great project as he died in 1216, while preparations were still being made. Even had Innocent III lived, however, Frederick wouldn't have been ready. When the departure date of 1217 came along, the emperor was still three years away from forcing the stubborn Otto to abdicate. 

The Invasion of Egypt

The armies of the Fifth Crusade, led by Duke Leopold of Austria and King Andrew of Hungary, left Europe in the late summer. The absence of Frederick II was disappointing, but expectations were still high since the political situation in the Holy Land was better than it had been for generations. The great enemy of Christendom, Saladin, was dead, and his empire had collapsed into civil war between three of his nephews. The oldest of them, al-Kamil, had managed to seize Egypt, and was desperate to preserve good relations with the crusaders until he could consolidate his position. 

This presented the crusaders with an unexpected problem. When they met at Acre with the remaining forces of Outremer, they made up a significant force. But what exactly should be their target? Frederick II was expected any day, and with his strength, Jerusalem was potentially within reach. If they attacked too early, however, they ran the risk of diluting their strength and ruining the opportunity when the emperor arrived. On the other hand, no one was quite sure exactly when Frederick would get there, and there was the real possibility that they would miss out on a genuine opportunity if they waited too long. 

The compromise was to focus on minor raids, but this strategy immediately backfired since it gave the less determined crusaders an excuse to leave. King Andrew of Hungary had been regretting his decision to join the crusade for some time, and after a brief skirmish he announced that his vow to defend the Holy Land had been fulfilled. He was followed by enough of the nobility to make a major operation impossible. 

Duke Leopold stalled for another few months, hoping for Frederick’s arrival. German troops began trickling in, but there was no sign – or word – of the emperor. Faced with the slow erosion of his army, Leopold made the decision to launch an invasion before his force completely dissolved. He selected the rich port of Damietta, in Egypt, a strategic harbor on the Nile Delta within easy reach of Cairo. 

The army reached Egyptian territory in the late spring of 1218. The first sight of Damietta wasn't encouraging. The city had both land and sea walls and was bristling with defenders. Even worse, it was connected by a pontoon bridge to a huge chain tower in the middle of the Nile that blocked all access to the river. Several attempts to take it failed, each more demoralizing than the last. The city was too fortified to storm and too important to leave behind. The only option was to attempt to starve it into surrender. 

As the scorching Egyptian summer dragged on, conditions in the crusader camp began to deteriorate. Food had to be rationed, and word arrived that al-Kamil was en route with a large relief army. On August 24, a wild plan was hatched to capture the chain tower. Two crusader ships were lashed together and a rickety wooden fortress was constructed on top. A few courageous volunteers entered the contraption and somehow managed to guide it to the tower without capsizing. Then, against furious opposition, they successfully forced their way inside, ripped down the sultan's banner and hoisted an image of the cross in its place. 

The fact that all of this was done in full view of al-Kamil, who had just arrived, made it that much sweeter. The stunned sultan, who had expected a demoralized, beaten enemy, promptly turned around and retreated, ordering that the Nile be clogged with sunken ships to prevent any immediate pursuit. 

Damietta's fate was now sealed, it just remained a question of how long it would hold out. The bigger concern, however, was who was actually in charge of the crusader army. The King of Hungary had already left, and now Duke Leopold of Austria announced plans to return to the West as well. The emperor Frederick would obviously be in charge when he arrived, but in the meantime there was no obvious candidate to act as a stand in. 

The army decided to put the matter to a vote, and John of Brienne, the mild but dedicated regent of Jerusalem, was elected. However, his election was immediately disputed by the recently arrived papal legate, a Portuguese cleric named Pelagius who had little patience and even less tact. In his mind, any other choice of commander beside himself was laughable. The pope had called the crusade into existence; only his representative was intellectually and spiritually suited to lead it. 

While the crusaders were bickering, al-Kamil was panicking. Even with fractured leadership, the western knights had surrounded one of his major cities and were within striking distance of his capital, Cairo. When the emperor Frederick arrived – as he was sure to do imminently – all of Egypt would be at risk. Much better to grit his teeth now and cut a deal before it was too late. Egyptian ambassadors were sent speeding to the crusading camp with a tantalizing offer. If they would agree to evacuate Egypt immediately, he would restore to them the entire kingdom of Jerusalem and throw in a thirty-year truce to boot. 

John of Brienne was overjoyed. At a single stroke all the damage that Saladin had done would be reversed. For the price of abandoning a single siege in a country they didn't want to be in, the crusaders would get everything that they had set out to do and far more. The Holy City would be theirs, safe and at peace for at least the next three decades. 

Cardinal Pelagius, however, would have none of it. When John of Brienne pointed out that capturing Jerusalem was the whole point of the crusade, the legate upbraided him for being politically naive. Egypt was already tottering, and when it fell they would get Jerusalem anyway. Why give up a profitable siege for the unreliable promise of a thirty-year truce? The Muslim defenders of Jerusalem, he pointed out, had already given up hope. They had destroyed the walls of the city to make it indefensible when it inevitably changed hands. 

There was no real debate. Despite the vigorous objection of John of Brienne, Pelagius dismissively rejected the offer, and the siege was resumed. Throughout the winter and following summer there was still no sign of the emperor Frederick, but at the end of August, there was a surprise visit by Francis of Assisi. The monk had decided to try to end the fighting by converting the sultan, and – in a remarkable display – had gently but persistently badgered Pelagius into allowing him to try. The subsequent conversation with al-Kamil – who mistook him for a peace envoy – bore no fruit, but lines of communication between the two sides were opened. 

A short time later the sultan repeated his offer, this time sweetening it by volunteering to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and turn over the relic of the True Cross that had been captured by Saladin at the battle of Hattin. Once again, Pelagius turned him down. The True Cross was intriguing, but he suspected that the sultan didn't have it – Saladin himself had failed to find it when attempting to ransom some prisoners thirty years earlier. 

The Capture of Damietta

By the fall, Pelagius' stubbornness appeared to have paid off. On November 4, 1219, a sentry noticed that one of Damietta's towers looked unguarded. The detachment sent to investigate made a horrific discovery. There was barely anyone left alive within the city. Starvation had reduced the population from sixty thousand to ten, and most of those were dying. Corpses choked the streets, bodies lay sprawled in beds or slumped over tables, and a sickening odor hung over everything. 

The sight moved even the hardest soldier to pity. The crusaders did their best to alleviate the suffering of the survivors, despite having little food themselves. The city was cleaned, the many orphaned children were baptized and fed, and the adults were allowed to ransom themselves. The greatest challenge, however, was psychological. 

The crusaders had been enduring a grinding siege for more than a year and a half. Now, suddenly, they had taken Damietta without a fight, and exchanged the spartan barracks of a military camp for the pleasures of what had been a wealthy port city. Surely they were entitled to a little relaxation before resuming the crusade. As it turned out, they didn't move for a year. 

This was mostly due to renewed uncertainty in their leadership. John of Brienne had left soon after the capture of the city, leaving Pelagius as undisputed commander, but most of the rank and file refused to be led by a member of the clergy. In any case, he was clearly losing control of the situation. Brothels and gambling houses had sprung up almost overnight, and violence over the distribution of spoils got so heated that Pelagius had to split the city up into national zones. 

The real culprit for the tedious inaction, however, was Frederick II. Just after Damietta fell he had publicly renewed his crusading vow, and sworn to leave Europe no later than the next spring. The crusaders were instructed to stay where they were until he arrived in person to lead them to victory. The first wave of imperial troops arrived in May and there was little doubt that the emperor himself was close behind. 

By now al-Kamil was frantic. Once again he made his offer to restore the kingdom of Jerusalem, and once again he was rebuffed. Week after week passed, however, and still Frederick didn't arrive. Finally, in July of 1221, three years since the crusaders had landed in Egypt, their patience ran out. Cardinal Pelagius proposed an immediate attack and the plan was accepted by the frustrated crusaders. Half of the army stayed behind to protect Damietta, the other half marched south to Cairo. 

Mansoura

The crusaders left in high spirits. However, now that they had finally begun to move, everything started to go wrong. The long delay had allowed al-Kamil to gather a massive army, easily outnumbering the crusaders. This army confronted the crusaders at the little town of Mansoura, about seventy-five miles north of Cairo. The inexperienced Pelagius chose a campsite on a spit of land formed by the Nile and one of its tributaries, pointedly ignoring a warning that if either river flooded they would be trapped there. The astonished sultan, who had lived the past three years in terror, never even had to use his army. He simply opened a sluice gate used to regulate the Nile's water level and let the river do the work for him. 

The Christian position was hopeless, and a month of dwindling food supplies convinced even Pelagius – now trapped on an island – that surrender was the only option. Surprisingly, he found the sultan in an agreeable mood. Al-Kamil's advisors had urged him to slaughter the trapped crusaders, but he realized that would only provoke yet another crusade. Better by far to accept the Christian surrender now before the emperor Frederick showed up and ruined everything. 

The terms he offered were therefore extremely generous. The crusaders had to surrender Damietta and evacuate Egypt. In return, the sultan would spare their lives, sign an eight-year truce, and even return the True Cross. 

The news was greeted in Damietta first with disbelief, then with horror. Although Frederick himself was nowhere to be seen, a fresh wave of German troops had arrived, only to be told that the crusade was over. Several groups vowed to stay and fight, regardless of the treaty, but this was mostly empty bravado. On September 8, 1221, al-Kamil reentered Damietta in triumph. 

For a crusade that had repeatedly been on the brink of spectacular victory, the scope of the humiliation was staggering. Just two months before the entire Holy Land, and Egypt as well, had been poised to return to Christian control. Then in a bewildering flash of idiocy it had all been undone. The crusaders hadn't just lost. Defeat had been wrenched from the jaws of victory.¹³⁴