High Middle Ages · Middle East · Religion

1064

Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem intensifies

1064

The German bishop Gunther of Bamberg led a mass pilgrimage of thousands to Jerusalem, suffering heavy casualties from Bedouin attacks in the Sinai. The scale of the expedition, and the difficulties it encountered, foreshadowed the impulse that would drive the First Crusade thirty years later when Urban II preached at Clermont.