Well, I'll lay this story out there and just say that it might be totally true....partially true....or entirely fake. Historians have picked up pieces of this, and tried to confirm it. What they get is a repeat by some historian in the 1200s to 1400s, who simply repeated what he heard.
So this story starts out with this kid (probably between 12 and 14 years old). Folks aren't that sure about the age, and that's what starts to tear apart the legit nature of this.
The kid says that he's had this visitation from Jesus, and he (the kid) was told to mount a holy crusade to the Middle East and convert all these Muslims over to being Christians. The message audience? Kids (not adults).
The story is split at this point....some saying this occurs in France....others in Germany.
The bulk of the belief in the story leans toward the kid being called Nicholas, and from Koln, Germany. In this part of the legend....the kid is a shepard, and known for being a fairly talkative individual, fully versed in persuasive capabilities.
The story lays out the problem of getting to Italy (meaning a whole summer of walking), and then the Med would split apart, and allow the kids accompanying Nicholas to walk all the way to the Holy Land (you can figure that the sea split would have to last at least sixty days.
The story goes that the group made some decision to split, two routes to Italy were chosen. Numbers in the two groups? A total unknown, but it often sounds like it was several hundred in both groups. As the story goes....the travels were pretty harsh....winter set in, and the bulk of kids on this journey either died in the winter period or they turned around and gave up.
The German story ends up with Nicholas dying on the return trip from Italy to Germany, having given up. Some of the remainder kids stayed in Italy, and no one ever got to the crusades regions.
The French story? Well, it's similar. The kid in charge is 12-year-old Stephen. In this piece, Stephen says he has a personal letter from Jesus (no explanation on how Jesus wrote it....he didn't know French) addressed to the King of France. I should note that Stephen is always identified as a shepherd as well.
His movement was more a religious cult nature, with various members who claimed to have miracle capabilities, and special 'gifts' (powers). The King of France at the time....tried to put a halt to the spectacle and ordered the followers to disband and return home. In this case, the 'kids' just didn't pay attention to the king.
In this episode, Stephen wasn't discussing converting Muslims to Christians. His mission was just to lead French people off to the Middle East, period.
What historians generally say is that this Stephen-period went on from early spring of 1212....to the fall, and in some big march from Paris, down to the south of France (along the Med). The group, which started off in the thousands.....found that they were mostly begging along the way, and enthusiasm dropped off big-time as summer started to come to an end. Stephen? He basically disappears entirely, and no one ever notes him again.
The odds that one or both of the stories are true? I've heard both stories told, and generally regard it as odd that one starts up in Germany, and the other in France....yet both around the same time period. This leads me to think that it's just one single event, and probably just the French story by itself. The shepherd job being both their occupations? Just odd, I think.
The odds that both are true, and both Nicolas and Stephen were both Paranoid Schizophrenic types? Well, yeah....this is the chief thought that entertains me.....both were in on some delusional business, and hyped up on religion.
I always thought that it'd make a great movie, with either Nicolas or Stephen, and this cult business which got out of hand.
The odds of some youth cult leader emerging today? With social media? I'd say there's a 99-percent chance that you could recreate the same dynamics and climax, as this kid crusade of 1212.
2 comments:
Always thought it was an interesting story. I had always heard that a large number of the marchers ended up being sold into slavery. Could it happen to? Sure given how gullible our youth are.
The German story tends to include the 'sold-off-into-slavery' angle, particularly after they cross the Alps and end up in Italy. The French story never gets to that angle (but I don't think that crowd ever left France). The German story always discusses the two groups heading south, and into the 'thousands'. No one ever says the number though, after they got over the Alps, and I might go to suggest that fewer than thousand made it to the Italian side in the end. On the French story, the number of 30,000 is thrown around (at least when they left Paris). This crowd more or less begged it's way south, and I would imagine half of the group quit by the tenth day. If you figure walking (750 km), those kids might have been able to handle 20 km per day easily, but with limited rations...hunger pains would have started up after a week.
For me, both stories are myths, and have marginal potential for being true. I like the French story more because a fair number of the ranking members of the group claimed to have miracle-powers. Yet these were all mostly juveniles.
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