Before 1096
According to Anna Comnena, he had attempted to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1096, but was prevented by the Seljuk Turks from reaching his goal and was tortured.
Sources differ as to whether he was present at Pope Urban II's famous Council of Clermont in 1095; but it is certain that he was one of the preachers of the crusade in France afterward, and his own experience may have helped to give fire to the Crusading cause. He soon leapt into fame as an emotional revivalist; and the vast majority of sources and historians agree that thousands of peasants eagerly took the cross at his bidding. However, Jonathan Riley-Smith has proposed that the People's Crusade also included well armed soldiers and nobles. This part of the crusade was also the crusade of the "paupers", a term which in the Middle Ages indicated a status as impoverished or mendicant wards of the Church. Peter organized and guided the paupers as a spiritually purified and holy group of pilgrims who would be protected by the Heavenly Host.
Read more about this topic: Peter The Hermit