Shepherds' Crusade riots in France

1251

A charismatic Hungarian preacher gathered tens of thousands of French peasants and shepherds under a banner of rescuing King Louis from captivity. The mob turned violently antisemitic and anticlerical before being suppressed by royal authorities at Bourges. The movement exposed the deep social tensions simmering beneath the surface of thirteenth-century France, where crusading fervor and class resentment fed on each other.