The Children's Crusade 1212 was no child's play ... "
Pope Innocent III
Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101
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The Children's Crusade was a failed popular crusade by European Christians to establish a second Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Holy Land, said to have taken place in 1212. Although it is called the Children's Crusade, it never received the papal approval from Pope Innocent III to be an actual Crusade. The traditional narrative is likely conflated from a mix of factual and mythical events, which include the preaching of visions by a French boy and a German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims in the Holy Land to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery in Tunis. The crusaders of the real events on which the story is based left areas of Germany, led by Nicholas of Cologne, and Northern France, led by Stephen of Cloyes.
Accounts
Traditional accounts
The variants of the long-standing story of the Children's Crusade have similar themes. A boy begins to preach in either France or Germany, claiming that he had been visited by Jesus, who instructed him to lead a Crusade in order to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. Through a series of portents and miracles, he gains a following of up to 30,000 children. He leads his followers south towards the Mediterranean Sea, in the belief that the sea would part on their arrival, which would allow him and his followers to walk to Jerusalem. This does not happen. The children are sold to two merchants (Hugh the Iron and William of Posqueres), who give free passage on boats to as many of the children as are willing. The pilgrims are then either taken to Tunisia, where they are sold into slavery by the merchants or else die in a shipwreck on San Pietro Island off Sardinia during a gale.
Modern accounts
According to more recent researchers, there seem to have actually been two movements of people of all ages in 1212 in Germany and France. The similarities of the two allowed later chroniclers to combine and embellish the tales.
Nicholas of Cologne in Germany
In the first movement, Nicholas, a shepherd from the Rhineland in Germany, tried to lead a group across the Alps and into Italy in the early spring of 1212. Nicholas said that the sea would open up before them just as the Lord had done to the Israelites and allow his followers to cross into the Holy Land. Rather than intending to fight the Saracens, he said that the Muslim kingdoms would be defeated when their citizens converted to Christianity. His disciples went off to preach the call for the "Crusade" across the German lands, and they massed in Cologne after a few weeks. Splitting into two groups, the crowds took different roads through Switzerland. Two out of every three people on the journey died, while many others returned to their homes. About 7,000 arrived in Genoa in late August. They immediately marched to the harbor, expecting the sea to divide before them; when it did not many became bitterly disappointed. A few accused Nicholas of betraying them, while others settled down to wait for God to change his mind, since they believed that it was unthinkable that he would not eventually do so. The Genoese authorities were reportedly impressed by the group, and they offered citizenship to those who wished to settle in their city. Most of the would-be Crusaders took up this opportunity. Nicholas refused to say he was defeated and travelled to Pisa, his movement continuing to break up along the way. In Pisa two ships directed to Palestine agreed to embark several of the children who, perhaps, managed to reach the Holy Land. Nicholas and a few loyal followers, instead, continued to the Papal States, where they met Pope Innocent III. The remaining ones departed for Germany after the Pontiff exhorted them to be good and to return home to their families. Nicholas did not survive the second attempt across the Alps; back home his father was arrested and hanged under pressure from angry families whose relatives had perished while following the children. Some of the most dedicated members of this Crusade were later reported to have wandered to Ancona and Brindisi; none are known to have reached the Holy Land.
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child's play
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child's play
1. Something that is very easy or simple to perform.
Oh please, I've been playing guitar for 20 years—that song is child's play.
2. Something that is insignificant.
Those drafts are child's play compared to my latest one—I think I really have a strong argument now.
See also: play
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
child's play
something very easy to do. The test was child's play to those who took good notes. Finding the right street was child's play with a map.
See also: play
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
child's play
Something easily done, a trivial matter. For example, Finding the answer was child's play for Robert, or The fight we had was child's play compared to the one I had with my mother! Originating in the early 1300s as child's game, the idiom was already used in its present form by Chaucer in The Merchant's Tale: "It is no child's play to take a wife."
See also: play
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
child's play
COMMON If something is child's play, it is very easy to do, especially compared with something else that is very difficult. He thought the work would be child's play. The problem in Western Europe was described by one EU energy expert as child's play compared to that in Eastern Europe.
See also: play
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
child's play a task which is very easily accomplished.
See also: play
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
;child’s play a very easy job or task: Mending the lamp was child’s play for an experienced electrician like him. OPPOSITE: a tall order
See also: play
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
child's play, easy as/that's
Extremely simple, easily accomplished. The earliest use of this simile appears in Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale: “I warne yow wel, it is no childes pley to take a wyf with-outen avysement.” It was probably a clich; by the time Thomas Carlyle wrote, “The craftsman finds it no child’splay” (Chartism, 1839).
See also: easy
The Dictionary of Clich;s by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer