Peter the Hermit (c.1050-1115 or1131) People's or Pauper's Crusade

Peter, the Hermit was a Roman Catholic Priest from Amiens.

Pope Urban 11 called for a crusade to liberate the Holy Places (1095)- destination the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem.
Peter toured Europe preaching the crusade. He was a key figure during the military expedition from France to Jerusalem, known as the People’s Crusade or Crusade of the Paupers. He was one of the preachers of the armed pilgrimage and leapt to fame as an emotional revivalist. Historians agree that 1000s of serfs and peasants eagerly took the cross at his bid. Some historians think the crusade would have included well-armed soldiers and nobles.

The Crusade to the Holy Land began in the spring of 1096. He received permission from Patriarch Simeon 11 of Jerusalem. He recruited from England, Lorraine, France and Flanders.

The start was disastrously with the massacre of Jewish civilians
( ReadMassacre of Jewish civilians)

They then had to go through Hungary, Belgrade and Sofia. They started in April 1096 with 40,000 men and women from Cologne and arrived in Constantinople with 30,000 by the end of July. (The ‘locals’ were expected to feed the vast host of paupers for the remainders of their journey.)r
( Read Hungary, Belgrade Sofia and Constantinople)
During the winter (1096/7), with little hope of securing Byzantine support, the Crusade waited for the armed crusaders as their sole source of protection in completing the pilgrimage.

The numbers, to a small degree, were replenished with disarmed , injured or bankrupted crusaders. . After a few rousing speeches Peter now played a subordinate role, The Crusade settled on a military campaign to secure the pilgrimage routes and holy sites in Palestine.

When they reached Antioch at the beginning of 1098 he gave a stirring speech before the half-starved Crusaders gained victory over the superior Muslim army besieging the city.
In 1099 he appears as the treasurer of the alms at the siege of Arqa. He was leader of he supplication processions around the walls of Jerusalem before it fell and later, within Jerusalem, after the surprising victory at the Battle of Ascalon (August).

At the end of 1099 he went to Latakia and sailed for the west. From this time he disappears from the historical records except in his obituary in the chronicle at Neufmoustier Abbey. ( read Later Life)

In 1100 he returned to Europe to be the prior at the monastery he had founded in Neufmroutier near Huy.

H e died in 1115 and his tomb is in Neufmoustier Abbey.-*

His name.
He is called Pierre l’Ermite in French. The structure of the name in French unlike in English has led some francophone scholars to treat l’Ermite as a surname rather than a title.

Sources
Wikipedia
The Hodder & Stoughton Book of Famous Christians by Tony Castle