In the year 1095 at the Council of Clermont pope Urban II (pontificate 1088-1099) called all pious Christians to take the Holy Land back from the Muslims. His call didn't fall on deaf ears and encouraged by the enthusiastic response of his listeners he went to visit other parts of Western Europe as well.
Urban II visited three territories mostly: Germany, Italy (obviously), and France. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, who knows a little bit of crusades or Christianity in the Middle Ages, that Italians and French were eager to take the cross. But Germans were a different matter entirely. Germans disliked Italians as much as Italians Germans. So when the pope got around to Germany, preaching about the horrid Muslims in Jerusalem, it fell on deaf ears. Germans couldn’t care less what he had to say or have them do. The reason behind their “overwhelming love” for the pope is that they were less entwined with Rome than the French were. France paid Rome more taxes but gained more privileges from Rome in turn. On the other hand, Germany had to pay less taxes, but also got less benefits. That’s why Germany didn’t have such a warm relationship with Rome that France did. Now Urban II was a very charismatic fellow, but he wasn’t the only mesmerizing figure gathering people for the cause.
The monk of Amiens, Peter, also known as Peter the Hermit (1050-1115) also rallied people to take the cross. But the key difference being that Peter focused on peasants rather than nobles. Peter had at his disposal only his wits and voice, which did the trick. But Urban II put his other trait, cleverness, in work. He offered anyone (didn’t matter if you were a bandit, murderer, rapist, thief etc) absolution. If you don’t know the meaning of this word, and don’t care enough to google it, then the short meaning is “the forgiving for all sins”. Why was this a clever move, you might ask? Well, no pope had promised this before, and it became the foundation for all the other crusades yet to come. And when people heard this, the eagerness to join the crusaders grew sky high!
The First Crusade started in the year 1096. When the nobles prepared for the oncoming warfare, the peasants took their seven things (some even didn’t have that much) and started their journey.
Peter the Hermit had a lieutenant, noble Walter Sans Avoir, who began his journey before Peter. Him and his merry men crossed Hungary peacefully, but they were halted at Belgrad. The governor was informed that the Christian army should arrive next year, so he didn’t have the supplies to feed the arrivals. Furthermore, he also needed the approval from the Byzantine emperor that Avoir’s merry men could be let through the gates at all. As to be expected from hungry peasants, they started to pillage the surrounding country side in response. Some even went back to Hungary to rob a local market, which they passed peacefully before. The local Byzantine army and the locals drove the thieves out and after that incident they were escorted straight to Constantinople. There they waited for Peter to catch up.
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