People's Crusade

People's Crusade
Part of the First Crusade
The defeat of the People's Crusade Illustration by Jean Colombe (from Passages d'outremer)
Date April–October 1096[1] Location Central Europe, Anatolia and Nicaea Result Sultanate of Rum victory[2] Crusaders massacre thousands of Jews in the Rhineland
Belligerents
West European Catholics	Sultanate of Rum
Commanders and leaders
Peter the Hermit Walter Sans Avoir † Emicho of Flonheim	Kilij Arslan[3]
Strength
20,000 crusaders[4] (initially 40,000)[5]	Unknown
Casualties and losses
Extremely high; near-complete destruction[6]	Relatively low

The People's Crusade was the beginning phase of the First Crusade whose objective was to retake the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, from Islamic rule. In 1095 the head of the Roman Catholic Church Pope Urban II started to urge faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the People's Crusade was conducted for roughly six months from April to October 1096. It is also known as the Peasants' Crusade, Paupers' Crusade or the Popular Crusade as it was executed by a mainly untrained peasant army prior to the main church-organized crusade. It was led primarily by Peter the Hermit with forces of Walter Sans Avoir. The peasant army of this crusade was destroyed by the forces of the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan at the Battle of Civetot in northwestern Anatolia.

The People's Crusade was the first, largest, and best documented of the popular crusades. The start of the more official and fully church-backed crusade, also called the "Princes' Crusade", occurred a few months later and was better organized, better armed, and better funded.