29. People's Crusade, France and Germany, 1096

At the end of 1095, Pope Urban II called for  the first of several crusades, wherein the Latin Christian Europeans were supposed to go take the Holy Land away from the Islamic rulers who held it at that time.  So the nobility of Europe, mostly from France, started putting together forces and money, so as to travel and fight.  That was the Prince's Crusade, the First Crusade, and it would leave Europe in the summer of 1096.  It takes a while to gather the wherewithal needed for such a venture.  Unless you just plan on being a mob!  In that case, you can be the People's Crusade, and leave for the Holy Land in April! It takes no time at all to gather money if you just steal it from other people.  The People's Crusade slaughtered the Jewish communities that they came across, creating the first of the giant massacres of the Jews of Europe which would continue on through the Middle Ages. They never  got to the Holy Land; those of them that survived the journey (and the Hungarians, who managed to kill a lot of them)  managed to get as far as Civetot, where the Seljuk Turks slaughtered them.  Your hosts aren't sorry about this.