Peter the Hermit and the People’s Crusade: The Controversial History of the First European Army to Head for Jerusalem

Of the many campaigns during the Middle Ages, few are as remarkable or seemingly impossible to win at the start as the First Crusade (1095-99), and the true crowning achievement of that crusade, which resulted in two centuries of Western European Christian states in the Middle East and the permanent firing of the European imagination, was the conquest of Jerusalem on July 15, 1099 after three weeks of siege. That victorious siege came four years after the call for a crusade first went out, and had the Crusaders not taken Jerusalem, the First Crusade would not likely have been followed by any more and the campaign might have been no more than an historical footnote of what could have been.

What’s often forgotten about the First Crusade is that it started inauspiciously for the Europeans, and the first army to arrive in the Middle East had an extremely checkered history even before it was decimated. On October 21, 1096, in the proximity of Helenopolis, which is now known as the village of Hersek in Bithynia, a contingent of Crusader pilgrims was massacred by the Seljuk Turkish Army, which had strategically positioned itself in anticipation of an ambush. The event took place in a significantly symbolic location in the Christian tradition. Indeed, the name Helenopolis is derived from the legend that Helen, the mother of Constantine and a notable proponent of her son's conversion, was born there. This was where the castle of Kibotos, also known as Civetot, once stood, constructed under Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus’s orders. It was near this castle that Crusader pilgrims established their encampment, leaving behind women, children, and the elderly as they prepared to launch an attack on the Turkish forces in Anatolia. The surprise attack was brought to a swift end by the Turkish forces’ superior tactics and equipment, which ultimately resulted in the massacre of the Christian population and the capture of numerous prisoners.

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Audiobook: 18 September 2025