The Pied Piper of Hamelin Crusade

Long, long ago, a series of wars were undertaken by Christians in the late Middle Ages to secure the right of Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulchre and to recover the Holy Land from its Mohammedan conqueors. These wars, which lasted from 1095 through 1272, were known as the Crusades.

The name Crusades is derived from the cross which the Crusaders, who were mostly knights, wore on their suits of mail. Ideas of chivalry as well as hopes of material gain became ideals as they gallantly served their liege.

It was an unforgettable sight to see hundreds of armoured knights upon their proud steeds, their banners unfurling in the breeze, each bearing his rightful arms, and each nation sporting its special color - red for France, white for England, green for Flanders, blue or azure for Italy, gules for Spain, a St. Andrew's Cross for Scotland, and red on white for the Knights Templar.

Among this retinue were the knights errant - those mediaeval knights who had so often wandered about the earth in quest of adventure and in search of opportunities of rescuing damsels in distress. Here, chivalry abounded.

Also here to serve, whose duty it was to serve, were the Knights Hospitallers, those gallant men who provided lodging and entertainment for pilgrims, and tended to the sick and poor.

Another group of knights were the Teutonic Knights, who were monks living under a monastic rule and abiding by the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. This group dressed in a black suit of mail as opposed to the white suit with a cross worn by the Hospitallers.

But in 1212 there was a Children's Crusade. Some 40,000 German children, under the leadership of a misguided zealot named Nicholas, set off over the Alps for Italy. Only a few of the children reached Genoa and Rome, where Pope Inocet III ordered them home. Only a few of the children ever returned home. Many were sold into slavery. Others perished at sea. No benefit has ever been ascribed to the Children's Crusade. The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has its roots in the story of the Children's Crusade.

The Pied Piper was a magician in German folklore. According to the legend, the town of Hamelin was plagued with rats in 1284. Mysteriously, a stranger dressed in parti-colored clothes appeared and offered to rid the town of the destructive vermin for a certain amount of money.

The town elders agreed to the contract, and the stranger began to play his flute. The rats came swaming from near and far and followed him to the edge of the river Weser, where they all drowned. Woe, woe. The townspeople refused to pay the piper.

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