apr 15, 1096 - April 15 1096: Peter the Hermit leads an army of 20,000 peasants onto the Holy Land.

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Less than 3,000 of the army survived and ambushed Anatolia. The main crusading force, featuring 4,000 mounted knights and 25,000 infantry, began to move east. Led by Raymond of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Flanders, and Bohemond of Otranto, the army of Christian knights crossed into Asia Minor in 1097. "Therefore, while the princes, who felt the need of many expenses and great services from their attendants, made their preparations slowly and carefully; the common people who had little property, but were very numerous, joined a certain Peter the Hermit, and obeyed him as a master while these affairs were going on among us. He was, if I am not mistaken, from the city of Amiens, and have we learned that he had lived as a hermit, dressed as a monk somewhere in Upper Gaul. After he had departed from there - I do not know with what intention - we saw him going through the cities and towns under a pretense of preaching. He was surrounded by so great throngs of people, he received such enormous gifts, his holiness was lauded so highly, that no one within my memory has been held in such honor." Peter the Hermit, according to this passage from Guibert of Nogent's account of the man, was a liberal type figure who restored peace to people, and didn't eat bread. Peter the Hermit, with time, became more of a mythic figure according to an account by William of Tyre.

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