page_title: Peter the Hermit
section_title: Crusade to the Holy Land
hierarchical_section_title: Peter the Hermit / Crusade to the Holy Land
context_page_description: Peter the Hermit was a priest of Amiens and a key figure during the First Crusade.
context_section_description: Before Peter went on his crusade he received permission from Patriarch Simeon II of Jerusalem. Peter was able to recruit from England, Lorraine, France, and Flanders.  Peter the Hermit arrived in Cologne, Germany, on Holy Saturday, the 12th of April in 1096. In the spring of 1096 Peter was one of the prominent crusader leaders involved in the Rhineland massacres against the Jews.
    Peter and his followers participated in the torture and slaughter of Jews in Lorraine, Cologne, and Mainz. In Mainz, Peter's followers killed a large group of Jews that had been granted refuge by a local bishop.
  Leading the first of the five sections of the People's Crusade to the destination of their pilgrimage, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he started (with 40,000 men and women) from Cologne in April, 1096, and arrived (with 30,000 men and women) at Constantinople at the end of July. The Eastern Roman Emperor Alexios I Komnenos was less than pleased with their arrival, for along with the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Patriarch Nicholas III of Constantinople, he was now required to provide for the care and sustenance of the vast host of paupers for the remainder of their journey.
  Before reaching Constantinople though, Peter and his followers began to experience difficulty. In Zemun, the Governor, who was descendant of a Ghuzz Turk, and a colleague, were frightened by the army's size and decided to tighten regulations on a frontier. This would have been fine if a dispute about the sale of a pair of shoes had not occurred. This led to a riot and against Peter's wishes the town was attacked and the citadel was stormed. This resulted in 4000 Hungarians being killed and many provisions being stolen. Then on June 26, 1096 Peter's army was able to cross the Sava river. Then the army marched into Belgrade, set the town on fire, and pillaged it. The army then made its way into and through Niš after an eight-day delay. After riding through Nish the Crusaders made their way towards Sofia when they were attacked on the road. The army took heavy losses. They lost 1/4 of their men but arrived in Sofia on July 12 nonetheless. The forces then arrived in Constantinople on August 1, 1096. After a while, they arrived at a castle called Xerigordon and captured it. They captured the castle by taking possession of the castle's spring and well. After setting off to Civetot, they had set up camp near a village called Dracon. This is where the Turks ambushed Peter and his forces. This was the final battle of the People's Crusade that Peter led.
  Most of the paupers failed to make their way out of Catholic jurisdiction. The majority were incapable of being provided for by the various lordships and dioceses along the way and either starved, returned home or were put into servitude, while a substantial number were captured and sold into slavery by the various Slavic robber barons in the Balkans, kindling the view of the Balkan Slavs as unredeemed robbers and villains.
  Peter joined the only other section which had succeeded in reaching Constantinople, that of Walter Sans Avoir, into a single group and encamped the still numerous pilgrims around Constantinople while he negotiated the shipping of the People's Crusade to the Holy Land. The Emperor meanwhile had failed to provide for the pilgrims adequately and the camp made itself a growing nuisance, as the increasingly hungry paupers turned to pilfering the imperial stores.
  Alexios, worried at the growing disorder and fearful of his standing before the coming armed Crusader armies, quickly concluded negotiations and shipped them across the Bosporus to the Asiatic shore at the beginning of August, with promises of guards and passage through the Turkish lines. He warned the People's Crusade to await his orders, but in spite of his warnings, the paupers entered Turkish territory. The Turks began skirmishing with the largely unarmed host. Peter returned in desperation to Constantinople, seeking the Emperor's help.
  In Peter's absence, the pilgrims were ambushed and cut to pieces in detail by the Turks, who were more d
caption: Peter the Hermit shows the crusaders the way to Jerusalem. French illumination (about 1270).
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