Pierre d'Achères), was a Roman Catholic priest of Amiens and a key figure during the military expedition from France to Jerusalem, known as the People's Crusade.

[6][7] According to Anna Komnene's Alexiad (1148), [8] Peter attempted a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1096, but was prevented by the Seljuk Turks from reaching his goal and was reportedly mistreated.

He soon leapt into fame as an emotional revivalist, and the vast majority of sources and historians agree that thousands of serfs and peasants eagerly took the cross at his bidding, partly because of promises he did make.

[11]) The leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Urban II, commissioned Peter to command an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

[13] In Mainz, Peter's followers killed a large group of Jews that had been granted refuge by a local bishop in exchange for money.

Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos was less than pleased with their arrival, for along with the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Patriarch Nicholas III of Constantinople, he was now required to provide for the care and sustenance of the vast host of paupers for the remainder of their journey.

[14] In Zemun, the governor, who was descendant of a Ghuzz Turk, and a colleague, were frightened by the army's size and decided to tighten regulations on a frontier.

The Emperor meanwhile had failed to provide for the pilgrims adequately and the camp made itself a growing nuisance, as the increasingly hungry paupers turned to pilfering the imperial stores.

Alexios, worried at the growing disorder and fearful of his standing before the coming armed Crusader armies, quickly concluded negotiations and shipped them across the Bosporus to the Asiatic shore at the beginning of August, with promises of guards and passage through the Turkish lines.

Despite Peter's pronunciations of divine protection, the vast majority of the pilgrims were slaughtered by the swords and arrows of the Turks or were enslaved.

When the princes arrived, Peter joined their ranks as a member of the council in May 1097, and with the little following which remained they marched together through Asia Minor to Jerusalem.

While his "paupers" never regained the numbers previous to the Battle of Civetot, his ranks were increasingly replenished with disarmed, injured, or bankrupted crusaders.

Guibert and other sources go on to write that Peter was responsible for the speech before the half-starved and dead Crusaders which motivated their sally from the gates of Antioch and their subsequent victory over the overwhelmingly superior Muslim army besieging the city.

Thus, having recovered his stature, in the middle of the year he was sent by the princes to invite Kerbogha to settle all differences via a duel,[2] which the emir subsequently declined.

[2] Albert of Aix in his Historia Hierosolymitanae Expeditionis[17] claims that Peter the Hermit was the true author and originator of the First Crusade.

[18] Various historical sources also recount that during an early visit to Jerusalem sometime before 1096, Jesus appeared to Peter the Hermit in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and bade him preach the crusade.

It is thought that during the Siege of Antioch during the days of famine and cold weather,[4] Peter attempted to flee only to be captured by the Norman Tancred and placed back on the battlefield in 1097.

[22] On its page entry of 8 July 1115 the chronicle says that this day saw "the death of Dom Pierre, of pious memory, venerable priest and hermit, who deserved to be appointed by the Lord to announce the first to the holy Cross" and the text continues with "after the conquest of the holy land, Pierre returned to his native country" and also that "he founded this church ... and chooses them a decent burial".

One legend has its roots in the writings of Jacques de Vitry, who found it convenient to convince people from the bishopric of Liège of the merits of participating in the Albigensian Crusade by manipulating the story of Peter.

[23][24] Another legend is given in the 14th century by the French troubadour Jehan-de-Bouteiller, who sings the memory of "a dict Peter the Hermit deschendant a count of Clairmont by a Sieur d'Herrymont [who] married a Montagut".