There are two primary versions of the story, one based in France and the other in Germany. Both versions describe children, mostly between the ages of 10 and 18, who were moved by religious fervor to take up arms and march toward the Holy Land. The children were inspired by the idea that their innocence would grant them divine protection and help them succeed where adult Crusaders had failed.
The French Version
The French version of the Children's Crusade is the more widely known. It is said to have started in 1212, when a French shepherd boy named Étienne (Stephen) claimed to have had a vision in which Jesus Christ instructed him to lead the children to the Holy Land to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Étienne’s message spread quickly throughout France, and he allegedly gathered thousands of children from across the country. These children, full of religious zeal, embarked on their journey toward the Mediterranean coast with the aim of crossing the sea to reach Jerusalem.
As they arrived in the port city of Marseilles, however, their plans took a tragic turn. According to later accounts, the children were sold into slavery by unscrupulous merchants, who had promised to help them get to the Holy Land but instead betrayed them for profit. Only a fraction of the children returned home, and the fate of many others remains unknown.
The German Version
A separate, but related, version of the Children's Crusade occurred in Germany, where a similar movement took place around the same time. According to some sources, another group of children, led by a German boy named Nicholas, set out to take Jerusalem. However, unlike the French children, the German children’s crusade did not end in complete disaster. Instead, some of them reportedly died during the journey, while others were taken aboard ships that were supposedly meant to transport them across the Mediterranean. The fate of the children from this group is also unclear, but it is believed that many were lost in the chaos or sold into slavery. shutdown123