History of the Childrens Crusade
And the Origin of the Pied Piper
Researched By Ashly Burgen
Kalamazoo Valley Community College
Spring 2007

In 1212, a new crusade developed in France around Stephen, a shepherd boy from Cloyes (near Verdome), who claimed to have received a message from Jesus ordering him to crush the infidels. Stephens preaching, with its eloquent appeal to the pure of heart, seemed the perfect antidote to the shame still felt about the Fourth Crusade. Encouraged by their elders, an alleged 30,000 unarmed children joined Stephen to attempt to recover the Holy Sepulcher from the Muslims (the number of children, however, was most certainly inflated).

At about that same time, a peasant boy in Germany named Nicholas is said to have attracted 20,000 children for his crusade, but the number was more likely 7,000 at the most. Nicholas claimed to have received his instructions from a cross of light in the sky.

Hordes of French children died of hunger and disease during their march, while thousands of German youngsters froze in the Alps or plummeted down the mountainsides. Finally, the French contingent reached Marseille and marched boldly up to the shore. But the Mediterranean Sea never parted as Stephen had promised. In the end, seven ships supplied by Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, each with about 700 changing children, set sail. Two ships broke apart in a storm, and all 1,400 children aboard them drowned. The rest reached shoreonly to find themselves in Egypt, rather than Palestine, where they were sold into slavery by the treacherous mariners with whom they had sailed. Several were killed when they refused to accept the faith of the Muslims.

When the Germans arrived at Genoa, they had no transportation at all, and many ended up being killed or raped before their long journey ended in failure. If the fourth had been the most cynical of the crusades, the Childrens Crusade, which had aimed to redeem the purity of the Crusades original principles, was the most tragic.

This is the tragedy that is said to be the origin of the Pied Piper story, where by a Piper comes into town and the melodic music from his pipe hypnotizes all the children into following him out of town and to their deaths.

Source: http://www.corvalliscommunitypages.com/Europe/prussia_germany/hamelin.htm