It was December when Count Raymond’s army crossed the borders of the Byzantine Empire and finally approached the great city of Constantinople. The passage through Hungary had gone without incident; however, various scouting parties reported hostile and tense encounters in all the villages and towns that they ventured into. Emissaries from King Koloman, the Hungarian ruler, had also visited the Crusader camp and issued stern warnings not to enter the towns or cities that were now being guarded by the Hungarian army.
Word had come that Peter the Hermit and his People’s Army had ravaged the surrounding countryside on their way through Hungary. Lacking any sort of discipline, organization, and the leadership of a professional army, the nearly forty thousand members of the poorly outfitted Peo
