In addition to those who could bear arms, the crusade armies included numerous camp-followers. They came in a variety of forms—the old and infirm, women (who posed a different set of problems), the clergy, and children. It is the latter who are the subject of this paper. In the first part I will examine the evidence for children on the crusades in contemporary sources— histories of individual expeditions written by participants or drawing upon eyewitness accounts. I will then go on to examine how the image of children on the crusades has been passed on to subsequent generations. I do not intend here to offer a comprehensive survey of children’s literature about the crusades. I will merely try to highlight some themes, in particular, from British historical novels and adventure stories written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.