This is part of the
Medieval European History Metanode.
The Peasants Crusade (1096-1096) was rallied in response to the same problems that precipitated
the First Crusade. Two
preachers called the
peasants of
France to leave their fields and go to fight in the
Holy Land: Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless.
Famine,
civil war, and
sickness made rural France an unpleasant place in which to live, so the peasants went quite willingly in droves. This Crusade was unorganized, and many of the people who went had no idea what they were doing, where they were going, or what they were in for. The
nobility of England who passed by these Crusaders viewed them "with contempt as persons who had altogether lost their wits," according to Ekkhard of Aurach in
Hierosolymita (ca. 1101). The deeds of any peasants who did manage to fight with the noble Crusaders of the First Crusade were considered part of that First Crusade.
See also
GeneralWesc's
The Crusades node.