Peter the Hermit

c. 1050
Amiens, France

1115
Liège, Belgium

Preacher

"There was a priest, Peter by name.... In response to his constant admonition [scolding] and call [for a Crusade]...every class of the Christian profession, nay, also women and those influenced by the spirit of penance [seeking forgiveness of sins]—all joyfully entered upon this expedition."

—Albert of Aix, quoted in The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eye-witnesses and Participants.

Peter the Hermit was a French preacher at the time when Pope Urban II (see entry) called for a Crusade, or holy war, against the forces of Islam in Palestine and Jerusalem. The pope demanded that Christians, both rich and poor, go to the Holy Land and end the centuries-long Muslim occupation there. Peter, a poor, ragged preacher living in the French region of Flanders, took the pope's words to heart. He began to preach throughout France and Germany and succeeded in raising a "people's" army of twenty thousand to forty thousand men, women, and children. Most of these people were peasants, or poor workers on the land, who listened to Peter's fine speeches about eternal salvation (forgiveness of sins) and thought it was a way out of their continual poverty and hunger. He also recruited some knights, or real soldiers, for his Crusader army, but most were common people. There were even a number of criminal types, for he attracted such people thanks to his fiery speeches and preaching.

In the spring of 1096, before the main body of Crusader forces, under the leadership of noblemen, had been assembled, Peter and his strange army set off for the Holy Land. Thousands died on Peter's march across Europe and into Asia Minor due to lack of food, fights with locals on their route, and the normal illnesses and accidents that accompanied long journeys during this time period. There, not far from Constantinople, his troops were quickly cut down by the Seljuk Turks, fierce fighters who had converted to the faith of Islam. Peter later marched with the official armies of the Crusade once they had arrived, taking part in the sieges (attacks) and victories at Antioch in 1098 and Jerusalem in 1099. He returned to France not long after, founding a monastery (religious institution) where he died in 1115. His speeches in Europe from 1095 to 1096 helped spread the message and drum up enthusiasm for the First Crusade (1095–99). Though his role was not as important in creating the Crusader movement as tradition and legend would have it, he still inspired thousands to join in and devote their lives and property to the cause.

A Man of Mystery

Peter the Hermit was born around 1050 in Amiens, France. Little is known about his early life. Some historians think he may have been the son of a Norman knight and that he was perhaps a soldier before turning to religion. There is no record of when or how he started preaching, or even if he was actually a confirmed (church-appointed) priest. It is also not known how he came by the name "hermit," for religious hermits were those who remained apart from the world, living alone and devoting their lives to religion. However, Peter most definitely went out into the world. By the early 1090s he already had thousands of followers in France. He traveled around the countryside in the area of Île-de-France, near Paris, and also in Normandy, Champagne, and Picardy, speaking to crowds of people at open-air meetings and relying on gifts from the faithful to see him through financially.

Peter was a small, thin man, who went about barefoot and always dressed in a worn-out robe. He rode a donkey and preached the benefits of charity, or giving to the poor, as well as repentance, or asking forgiveness for sins. He was one of many such grassroots preachers who roamed the countryside of Europe at the time, attracting huge crowds eager to hear him speak. He was such a good speaker that his loyal followers found him almost holy; members of the audience considered themselves lucky if they were able to snatch even a hair off Peter's poor little donkey as a keepsake, or remembrance. The German historian Hans Eberhard Mayer, writing in The Crusades, noted that Peter "did not look very attractive, usually being caked [covered] in mud and dirt, as he rode about the countryside on his donkey. Yet he was a man of electrifying eloquence [fine speaking ability] who radiated [gave off] an unusual power." So strong a speaker was Peter that he also attracted the rich and noble to his ranks. Many of these noblemen converted to Christianity as a result of his preaching and handed over all their worldly possessions to Peter and his charities.

Legend has it that Peter traveled to the Holy Land in 1093 as a pilgrim (religious traveler) anxious to visit the places associated with Jesus Christ. However, since about 1070 Jerusalem had been occupied by the Turks. These people from the grasslands of Asia and Persia were fresh converts to Islam and not as tolerant about letting all religions visit the holy city as the Arab Muslims had been when they held the city. A holy shrine to three faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—Jerusalem was as much a symbol of faith as a living city. Supposedly, Peter had been prevented from visiting the holy places in Jerusalem.

Returning to France, he had a vision of God, who told him that Christians could drive the infidels, or non-Christians, out of the Holy Land and Jerusalem if only they had the courage to try. According to legend, this message took the form of a letter that Peter himself delivered to Pope Urban II in Rome. Thus, Peter was the person who set the First Crusade in motion. In 1095 the pope was being guided by Peter's word when, speaking at the Council of Clermont in southern France, he called for a holy war against the Turks and Islam in the Holy Land. This legend about Peter and the origin of the Crusades was believed for hundreds of years in Europe.

In reality, it is not known if Peter visited Palestine or Jerusalem before 1095; most likely he did not. Instead, he was busy preaching in France, building up a community of faithful followers as well as enough wealth to support several charities. Certainly he never met the pope in person. After announcing the holy war at the Council of Clermont, Urban II went on to speak and preach on the same subject in other places in France. When Peter heard the call, he felt that he needed to join the cause—probably based on good intentions rather than simply to make himself more popular with the people. As the historian Zoé Oldenbourg has commented in The Crusades: "Adored by the people and respected by the great, Peter the Hermit was already, in 1095, a leader of crowds." She goes on to say that we do not know whether Peter used to his advantage the idea of a holy war as a way to make himself well liked among the people, but he did argue with the pope about claiming credit for the Crusade. In other words, the Crusades presented both a duty and an opportunity for Peter.

The People's Crusade

While in the company of loyal followers, Peter traveled throughout France, preaching at Berry, in Champagne, and in Lorraine. He collected money from noblemen to make the trip to the Holy Land and assembled a growing band of very unlikely soldiers to serve God. He and his crowd even received money from the Jews of Europe, a group at odds with Christian beliefs that would later be persecuted by Crusaders. Peter was also rumored to have carried with him a letter from the chief rabbi, or religious and scholarly leader, of the French city of Rouen to the Jews of Mainz, Germany, which asked for them to be charitable to him and his followers when he passed through their territory. In April 1096 Peter and his army of fifteen thousand or twenty thousand moved on to Germany to gather more faithful recruits. Even though the Germans could not understand him when he spoke, they still joined in his popular People's, or Peasants', Crusade, as it came to be called.

Most of these followers had no weapons, were poorly dressed, and had no money for a journey of the sort Peter was planning. Many of them joined not out of religious faith but in the hope of a better life. The years 1094 and 1095 had been bad ones throughout the land, with drought, or lack of rain, resulting in ruined crops. Peasants were ready, if not desperate, for a change. Peter's words, which promised salvation, or deliverance, to the faithful, fell on their ears like water on dry lips. Among the faithful was a knight who would help organize this mass of people.

Walter Sans-Avoir, or Walter the Penniless, gave some sense of military order to the mob, but there were not enough such actual knights or soldiers in Peter's ranks. Leaving Germany around May 1096, Peter and his followers were well in advance of the main Crusader armies that were still being assembled under the watchful eye of Urban II. In fact, when Urban II demanded that rich and poor alike answer his call, such an odd assortment of people as Peter had gathered was not what he had in mind. Urban had meant rich and poor knights, not Peter's rabble, or disorderly crowd. But by the time Peter and his "army" left Germany and headed for the Holy Land, they numbered between twenty thousand and forty thousand strong and had collected a considerable amount of money for food along the way.

The Holy Cross

When Peter and his ragtag band of amateur soldiers set off for the Holy Land, they must have made an amazing impression on people along the route. With Peter at the front on his donkey, the knights coming behind on horseback, and the swarms of poor people following on foot, their parade stretched across the horizon. They carried banners with the Holy Cross emblazoned (stitched) on them, and on their shoulders they all wore a patch of white in the shape of a cross.

When the professional armies of nobles and knights followed later, they wore a cross of blood-red cloth on the front of their tunics, or knee-length shirts. Those that came back safely wore the same cross on the backs of their tunics. The Latin word for cross is crux, and soon those who went on the holy war were called "Crusaders." The Latin word for "cross" thus gave the name "Crusades" to this two-hundred-year-long battle between Christians and Muslims.

This money soon ran out, however, for food was not always to be found along the route, and if there were not much of it, then food prices would go up. Walter's smaller group had gone first, and Peter and his large troop followed along the same route. Thus, by the time the second group passed through a region, the amount of available food was already low. This caused friction, or hostility, between the Crusaders and the local people. In Hungary battles broke out between the two, with more than four thousand Hungarians reported as having been killed by the Crusaders. While crossing Bulgaria, further conflict broke out. When a local governor attacked the Crusaders after they set fire to his water mills, thousands of Crusaders were killed. Thousands more died of starvation and accidents along the way. It took Peter and his people four months to make the journey, but finally, in August 1096, they reached Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, or the eastern Roman Empire, and the seat of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, as opposed to Rome, which was the center of the Roman Catholic Church.

In Constantinople they were greeted by the Byzantine emperor Alexius I (see entry), who was less than pleased with this crowd of simple laborers and women. He had asked the pope for military aid in resisting the invasions of Seljuk Turks, who were threatening his eastern borders. Now he was stuck with thousands of poor people whom he had to feed. The crowd, eager to enter the battle and fight the infidel, was soon causing the Byzantines as much trouble as they had the Hungarians and Bulgarians. Alexius I agreed to ferry this large force across the Bosporus Strait, the narrow body of water separating Greece from Asia Minor, where they set up camp at Civetot. Alexius I advised Peter to wait for the better-trained knights and Crusaders, who were on their way to Constantinople, before attacking the Turks, but they did not wait.

In September a band of six thousand Crusaders captured an abandoned castle, Xerigordon, and planned to use it as a base for further operations against the Turks. But soon they were surrounded by the Turks, who controlled the water supply for the castle. After a short siege, the Crusaders were killed. Before word of the disaster got back to the main camp at Civetot, Peter had returned to Constantinople to ask Alexius I for help. He made Walter the Penniless and those he had left in charge promise to remain where they were, but when they heard of the slaughter at Xerigordon, twenty thousand Crusaders set out for the Seljuk city of Nicaea to get even with the Muslims. On October 21, 1096, they walked into a trap set by the Turks, and all but a small band of Crusaders were massacred. Although this put an end to the People's Crusade, Peter nevertheless followed the other Crusader armies to the siege at Antioch, where, it seems, he deserted at one point. From there he went on to Jerusalem, where, in 1099, he preached at the Mount of Olives to inspire the men before they made their final attempt to capture that city. In 1100 he returned to Europe and founded the monastery of Neufmoustier in Liège, Belgium, where he died fifteen years later.

Peter the Hermit is the embodiment, or strong symbol, of the power of the spoken word. He, even more than Urban II, delivered the most famous propaganda (promotional information) for the Crusades. His preaching throughout France and Germany in 1095 and 1096 took the Crusader movement out of the hands of the nobles and placed it in those of the common people of Europe. The legend that formed around him sparked the imagination of the poor people of Europe for generations following the Crusades. He became a popular folk hero, the stuff of myth and legend. In reality, he was a better speaker than a leader. His poor leadership cost the lives of thousands of his followers and set the stage for bad relations between the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and future Crusader armies.

For More Information

Books

Comnena, Anna. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena. Translated by E. R. A. Sewter. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1969.

Goodsell, Daniel Ayres. Peter the Hermit: A Story of Enthusiasm. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1906.

Krey, August C., ed. The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eye-witnesses andParticipants. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1921.

Mayer, Hans Eberhard. The Crusades. 2nd ed. Translated by John Gillingham. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Oldenbourg, Zoé. The Crusades. Translated by Anne Carter. New York: Pantheon, 1966.

Web Sites

"Ill-Fated Crusade of the Poor People." About's Medieval History and theRenaissance.http://historymedren.about.com/library/prm/bl1poorpeople.htm (accessed on July 21, 2004).

"People's Crusade." The Crusades Bookstore.http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/firstcrusade/Overview/Overview.htm (accessed on July 21, 2004).

"Peter the Hermit." New Advent.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11775b.htm (accessed on July 21, 2004).

"Peter the Hermit and the Popular Crusade: Collected Accounts." Internet Medieval Sourcebook.http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/peterhermit.html (accessed on July 21, 2004).