Note z — Chapter IX · [a]
Reading edition
The most singular effect of this crusading spirit was witnessed in 1211, when a multitude, amounting, as some say, to 90,000, chiefly composed of children, and commanded by a child, set out for the purpose of recovering the Holy Land. They came for the most part from Germany, and reached Genoa without harm. But, finding there an obstacle which their imperfect knowledge of geography had not anticipated, they soon dispersed in various directions. Thirty thousand arrived at Marseilles, where part were murdered, part probably starved, and the rest sold to the Saracens. Annali di Muratori, A.D. 1211; Velly, Hist. de France, t. iv. p. 206.