Peter the Hermit

Peter the Hermit, the apostle of the first crusade, was of gentle birth, and a native of Amiens, where he was born about the middle of the 11th century. He served some time as a soldier, became a monk, and is usually said to have made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land before 1094, when he began the preaching campaign which was to render him famous, and leave such a mark on history. But it should be noted that Hagenmeyer in his monograph Peter der Eremita (1880) denies that Peter was ever in Palestine till he went with the crusaders, and asserts that the scheme of a crusade originated with the pope, not with the hermit. The article CRUSADES gives an account of his preaching, its results, and of poor Peter's faint-hearted attempt at desertion during the siege of Antioch. After the end of the crusade he returned to Europe, and founded a monastery at Hny in the Low Countries, where he died, 7th July 1115. His remains were translated to Rome in 1634.