the First Crusade

Famine

Due to lack of food there was a famine in the crusader camp, killing both men and horses, one in seven men was dying of starvation and only 700 horses remained. Supposedly some of the poorer soldiers, the remnants of the People's Crusade led by Peter the Hermit and called Tafurs, turned cannibal, eating the bodies of dead Turks. Others ate horses, although some knights preferred to starve. Local Christians, as well as the exiled Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Simeon, now living on Cyprus, attempted to send food but this did not relieve the famine. Some knights and soldiers began to desert in January of 1098, including Peter the Hermit, although he was quickly found and brought back to the camp by Tancred, his prestige tarnished.