The so-called Children's Crusade illustrates at once the
religious enthusiasm and misdirected zeal which marked the whole crusading
movement. During the year 1212 A.D. thousands of French children assembled in
bands and marched through the towns and villages, carrying banners, candles,
and crosses and singing, "Lord God, exalt Christianity. Lord God, restore
to us the true cross." The children could not be restrained at first, but
finally hunger compelled them to return home. In Germany, during the same year,
a lad named Nicholas really did succeed in launching a crusade. He led a mixed
multitude of men and women, boys and girls over the Alps into Italy, where they
expected to take ship for Palestine. But many perished of hardships, many were
sold into slavery, and only a few ever saw their homes again. "These
children," Pope Innocent III declared, "put us to shame; while we
sleep they rush to recover the Holy Land."
END OF THE CRUSADES
The crusading movement came to an end by the close of the
thirteenth century. The emperor Frederick II for a short time recovered
Jerusalem by a treaty, but in 1244 A.D. the Holy City became again a possession
of the Moslems. They have never since relinquished it. Acre, the last Christian
post in Syria, fell in 1291 A.D., and with this event the Latin Kingdom of
Jerusalem ceased to exist. The Hospitalers, or Knights of St. John, still kept
possession of the important islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, which long served as
a barrier to Moslem expansion over the Mediterranean.
