The Children's Crusade is the name given to a variety of fictional and factual events which happened in 1212 that combine some or all of these elements: visions by a French and German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery.
With the publication of Peter Raedt's groundbreaking scientific study in 1977 , it is now generally accepted that they were not "children" but multiple bands of "wandering poor" in Germany and France, some who try to reach the Holy Land and others who never intend to do so.
Early versions of events, of which there are many variations told over the centuries, are largely apocryphal.
