Chapter Three - The People’s Crusade

CHAPTER THREE

The People’s Crusade

IF THE CRUSADES were a movie, this would be the cold open where everything goes horrifically, comically wrong.

The Pope had called for knights. Professionals. Men in armor with warhorses and banners and actual military experience.

What he got instead… was Peter the Hermit.

Picture a wiry little monk with wild eyes, a ratty robe, and the kind of charisma that makes people give away their shoes. That’s Peter. A preacher, yes, but more like a medieval hype man with the conviction of a prophet and the hygiene of a turnip.

After Clermont, Peter didn’t wait. He started walking. Preaching. Screaming. Gathering followers like a spiritual magnet for the unhinged. By the time spring hit, he had assembled the world’s first unofficial, unsanctioned, and deeply unprepared Crusade.

It was a swarm. Not an army.

Tens of thousands of peasants, farmers, widows, beggars, barefoot children, rogue knights, former criminals, and full-blown zealots were all following Peter, convinced they were on a mission from God.

They didn’t bring maps.
They didn’t bring armor.
They didn’t bring food.

But they brought faith.
And rage.
And a dangerous level of certainty.

As they passed through towns, they began attacking Jewish communities. They were blaming them for the death of Christ, looting their homes, and murdering entire families.
The Rhineland massacres were not battles. They were pogroms. And they were just the beginning.

By the time they reached Eastern Europe, this “Crusade” looked more like a riot on pilgrimage. They begged. They stole. They died in droves from hunger, disease, or just straight-up exhaustion. Bodies lined the road before they even made it halfway to Constantinople.

And yet, they pressed on.

When they finally arrived in Byzantine territory, Emperor Alexios took one look at them and nearly fainted. This wasn’t the elite military aid he’d asked the Pope for. This was an unwashed mob of God-drunk lunatics camped outside his walls.

Still, he gave them ships. Probably just to make them leave faster.

They crossed the Bosporus. They stepped onto Muslim-controlled territory.
And almost immediately… they walked straight into a slaughter.

The Seljuk Turks didn’t even have to try. They watched this peasant horde stumble into Anatolia like confused tourists, then cut them down in a single battle near Civetot.

It wasn’t a war. It was a slaughter.

Peter the Hermit survived. He had stepped away just before the fighting to “go get reinforcements.” Of course he did.

The People’s Crusade was over before the real Crusade even began.

It left no territory conquered, no glory earned.
Just bodies in the dirt.
And a lesson:

Faith alone isn’t enough to win a war.

But while the peasants bled, the knights were still gearing up.
The real army with swords, siege engines, and an unholy amount of ambition was just about to roll out.

And this time… they would reach Jerusalem.