The Children’s Crusade 1212 – Part 2: Nicolas of Cologne

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Zach Cornwell (1:00)

Hello and welcome to Conflicted, the history podcast where we talk about the struggles that shaped us, the tough questions that they pose, and why we should care about any of it. Conflicted is a member of the Evergreen Podcast Network. And as always, I'm your host, Zach Cornwell. You are listening to the second and final episode of a two-part series on the Children's Crusade of 1212

It goes without saying, but if you haven't listened to part one yet, I would definitely recommend listening to that first. We'll be picking up the story right where we left off last time, and without a working familiarity with all the different threads we established in part one, the second leg of this journey might lose some of its impact. But of course, unlike a medieval peasant, you are free to do what you like. Listen backwards, forwards or sideways, it is entirely up to you. Before we dive back into our story, however, I'd like to quickly recap the major beats of the previous episode, so we have all that context clear as a church bell in our heads.

For as long as human beings have been scribbling down their history, one thing has remained the same. All great stories, especially the true ones, need to have a hero, and last episode, we met ours. But instead of an armored knight or a brave general or a courageous priest, our hero was a 12-year-old boy named Stephen.

Stephen, or Etienne, as it would have been pronounced at the time, was a shepherd by trade and a dreamer by inclination. In his meadow outside the little French town of Croix, Stephen watched the clouds, tended his sheep, and tried to distract himself from the fact that he would likely die an old man in that very same meadow. But then one day, fate dropped a pebble into the clear, calm water of Stephen's existence. By chance or divine intervention, the 12-year-old shepherd boy met a strange old pilgrim on the road outside of town. Words were exchanged, revelations were received, and that same afternoon Stephen was sprinting back to the village absolutely convinced that he had been visited by an avatar of God himself. His eyes blazing with the conviction of genuine epiphany, Stephen told his fellow shepherd boys about his brush with the Almighty. He told them that the strange pilgrim had given him letters, written in angelic fire, addressed to the King of France, Philip Augustus himself. His mission, Stephen explained to the wide-eyed shepherd boys, was to deliver these letters to the king, enlist his aid, and march all the way to the Holy Land to take back Jerusalem from the wicked Saracens.

Rather than mocking him with the unique cruelty that only 12-year-old boys can deploy, Stephen's friends actually believed him, and agreed to accompany him on his divine mission. And there, in that little French town in the summer of 1212, the Children's Crusade was born. In a matter of weeks, thousands of people had flocked to Stephen's cause. Now why a spark that small would light a fire that big is still a matter of historical speculation. But it probably had something to do with the fact that every crusade since the first one in 1095 had been an abject failure. Bloody parades of vanity, greed, and strategic incompetence. Time and time again, the landed nobility of Europe had demonstrated their inability to accomplish anything of lasting value in the Holy Land. Maybe, some thought, it was time for the blue bloods to make way for the new blood. As historian Jane Sayers writes, The Children's Crusade reflected the prevalent idea that simplicity and poverty might remedy all the church's troubles, where the politicians and leaders had failed, simple Christian people might triumph. Historian Anthony Bridge elaborates on that idea, quote, Had not Christ said that the meek would inherit the earth? And had not that great soldier of Christ, Saint Paul, said that God's strength was made perfect in weakness? Was it possible, therefore, that the former crusades had failed because they had relied on the strongmen of this world, and not on the weak and the poor, who alone were filled with the authentic power of God? Such speculation fascinated a great many people and created an atmosphere in which the extraordinary idea of a Children's Crusade can not only grow but be taken seriously.