it all began in may NUMBER_TOKEN when a NUMBER_TOKEN year old shepherd called stephen from a small town near orleans rocked up in sandinis north of paris where king philip of france was holding court the young stephen gave the king a letter which he said christ had personally handed to him instructing him to rally support for a children's crusade which all sounds rather lovely until you remember the fact that a crusade is not a party but stabbing muslims yeah as we'll find out a tad ambitious for a NUMBER_TOKEN year old and sure enough king philip told stephen to give up and go home but he didn't instead he stood at the steps of the abbey of sandinis preaching his vision of gathering a bunch of children to go and fight heathens in the middle east and save christendom he said when they reached the sea the water would part and they could pass like moses through the red sea and safe into the holy land these inspiring sermons did the trick and he soon had quite the following fired up by his success he set off around france summoning children to the crusade and many of his disciples spread the message even further they were all to congregate in vendom in the center of france not far south of his hometown from where they would begin their crusade by the time the vendom rendezvous came in june NUMBER_TOKEN there were thousands of children descending upon the town to join the crusade according to some contemporary chroniclers there were NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN children way too many to be accommodated by the town so they had to camp outside many of the children were under NUMBER_TOKEN years old both girls and boys the majority were peasant children but some were from noble families there were a few older pilgrims who tagged along as well including some priests who joined just out of piety or pity perhaps others joined in the hope of catching some free food and gifts which were being showered upon the young crusaders as they headed south they set off from vendome stephen in typical home brew cult leader fashion travelled in far greater comfort than his followers he had a decorated cart with a canopy to protect him from the sun whilst almost everyone else had to walk he was treated like a saint with locks of his hair and snippets of his clothes collected as precious relics by his followers but what started out as a happy jaunt soon descended into tragedy it was an unusually hot summer they had no food and little water and depended on the charity of townsfolk for sustenance many of the children died on the way others dropped out and tried to return home the remainder finally reached marseille and the mediterranean coast if the journey down to now had been an utter disaster what happened next or rather what didn't happen next was just as bad surprise surprise the morning after they arrived in marseilles god failed to part the sea for stephen so some of his followers left but the rest hung around in the hope that god would suddenly change his mind or at least finish his coffee break and get back to steven induced c parting asap and they'd find themselves walking across the seabed of the mediterranean to palestine in just a few short hours quite
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