Bizarre Facts About The Crusades

Publish date: 2024-05-05

It's safe to say that most medieval Europeans who went on a crusade to the Holy Land did so at the urging of a powerful, sometimes even charismatic individual. It could be a local lord, a religious leader, or even an especially fervent neighbor. But, as the religious intensity of the Crusades built, more and more people felt that it was their Christian duty to "free" the region — or at least gawk at the fighting and maybe take part in some adventuring and plundering opportunities. And the growing tide of interested folks, combined with a near-mystical mission, eventually produced some pretty weird leaders.

Namely, that one goose. According to The Medieval Magazine, the 1096 People's Crusade was an unofficial one that wasn't technically sanctioned by the pope. Yet, plenty of regular folks took part, with some even following a holy goose. In one version of the tale, a poor woman is trailed by one of her geese and, through a series of misinterpretations and misunderstandings, people began to believe that the divinely inspired goose was leading them.

Chroniclers jumped on the chance to paint the human followers as credulous fools. Who tries to follow barnyard fowl all the way to Jerusalem, anyway? By most medieval understandings, animals didn't have a soul and so couldn't begin to understand the Divine. The people's near-worship of the animal, which included even allowing it to enter into a church, was also deemed blasphemous.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunCAkmlna3Ffl7a7rdGrnGaekZjBtHnAm6aurF2ptaZ5wqusrJmUmsBw