Children's Crusade

The Children's Crusade was a movement in 1212 in which groups of young people, mainly from France and Germany, set out to reach the Holy Land and to convert or drive out the Muslims by peaceful means. The best-known leaders were a boy named Stephen of Cloyes in France and another named Nicholas in the Rhineland. Many of the participants were not strictly children but poor people and wandering youths. Neither group reached Jerusalem. Many died of hunger and illness on the way, and some returned home, while later stories claimed that others were sold into slavery. Historians have questioned many details of the accounts, which were mostly written decades later.

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