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The Preaching of the First Crusade and the Persecutions of the Jews

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Abstract Although the versions of Pope Urban’s call for the First Crusade focus on the need to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims, crusaders and locals attacked first the communities of the Franco-German (Ashkenazic) Jews. Both contemporary and modern historians have offered a variety of explanations for these uncalled-for devastating attacks. Without discounting some of these proposals, this article applies the psychological explanation of Displacement to offer an additional reason. The article suggests that the urgent call to retaliate against the Muslims immediately and the many graphic descriptions of alleged Muslim atrocities against Eastern Christians and Christian pilgrims in the propaganda of the First Crusade created mounting frustration in Europe. And since this frustration could not be expressed immediately and directly against its source, i.e., the faraway Muslims, the attackers displaced their aggression onto the nearby Jews. Moreover, Displacement also explains the many close parallels between the images of Muslim atrocities in crusading rhetoric and the idiosyncratic manifestations of the violence against European Jews in the early stages of the First Crusade.

1. FN11 Dana Munro, “The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont, 1095,” American Historical Review XI (1906), 231-242; H.E.J. Cowdrey, “Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade,” History 55 (1970), 177-188; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 11-30, and The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 71, 72. Jill N. Claster, Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to the Middle East, 1095-1396 (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 34-39. Partial translations of these versions are available in Edward Peters, The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and other Source Materials (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 36. My translations of Guibert are from the Latin text in R.B.C. Huygens, Guibert de Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos et cinq autres textes. Corpus Christianorum, 127 A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), 111-114.
2. FN22 The most useful accounts are the Mainz Anonymous, Eliezer bar Nathan’s account, and the account attributed to Solomon bar Samson. I used the Hebrew texts in Eva Haverkamp’s critical edition Hebräische Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen während des Ersten Kreuzzugs. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Bd. 1 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2005). English translations in Shlomo Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). For translations of the Mainz Anonymous and Solomon Bar Samson’s account see also Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987).
3. FN33 For the Latin accounts see note 1 above. For different methodological approaches to the Hebrew accounts, see Robert Chazan, “The Facticity of Medieval Narrative: A Case Study of the Hebrew First Crusade Narratives,” The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies Review 16 (1992), 31-56; and more recently his God, Humanity and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, 2000), especially pp. 19-110. Ivan G. Marcus, “From Politics to Martyrdom: Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusading Riots,” Prooftext 2 (1982), 40-52; “History, Story and Collective Memory: Narrative in Early Ashkenazic Culture,” in The Midrashic Imagination, ed. Michael Fishbane (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 255-279; Jeremy Cohen, “Gezerot Tatnu: Martyrdom and Martyrology in the Hebrew Chronicles of 1096” [Hebrew], Zion 59 (1994), 169-208; “The Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in Their Christian Cultural Context,” in Juden und Christen zur Zeit Der Kreuzzuge, ed. Alfred Haverkamp (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1999), 87-106; Sanctifying the name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 39-57. Obviously, the rhetorical aspect of these sources must be considered. But the rhetoric, metaphors, and symbols are also expressions of the reality that transpired, even if the depictions of this reality were not as accurate as one would wish.
4. FN44 Hans Mayer summarized the “real motivation” in a word: greed. H.E. Mayer, The Crusades (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 41. Steven Runciman presents the violence against the Jews as the crusaders’ attempt to liberate themselves from old debts owed to Jews and as a way of sponsoring the expensive holy war. Steven Runciman, The First Crusade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 62-65. But see Michael Toch’s superb article, “The Economic Activities of German Jews in the 10th to 12th Centuries: Between Historiography and History” in Facing the Cross: The Persecutions of 1096 in History and Historiography (in Hebrew), ed. by Yom Tov Assis et al. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2000), 32-54. David Malkiel correctly concluded that “greed as a motivation does not suffice to explain the crusaders’ behavior,” but dismisses the important question of motivation too easily: “Why the crusaders sought to murder Jews [in 1096] remains a puzzle.” Reconstructing Ashkenaz: The Human Face of Franco-German Jewry, 1000-1250 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 75, 84.
5. FN55 A survey is provided by Benjamin Z. Kedar, “Crusade Historians and the Massacres of 1096,” Jewish History 12:2 (Fall, 1998), 11-31; Tyerman adds to this “obscene cocktail” political reasons, God’s War, 103-105. More generally, early expressions of piety are addressed by Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977).
6. FN66 Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, 51-52, 63-65, 75, 76, 80-81; Jean Flori, La Première croisade: l’occident chrétien contre l’Islam: (aux origines des idéologies occidentales): 1095-1099. La Mémoire des siècles (Bruxelles: Editions Complexe, 1992), 46, 51, 54; idem, La guerre sainte: la formation de l’idée de croisade dans l’Occident chrétien. Collection historique (Paris: Aubier, 2001), 302ff; “Une ou plusieurs ‘premièr croisade’? Le message d’Urban II et les plus anciens pogroms d’Occident,” Revue Historique 285 (1991), 22-26. Robert Chazan, “The Anti-Jewish Violence of 1096: Perpetrators and Dynamics,” in Religious Violence between Christians and Jews: Medieval Roots, Modern Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), 21-43. Jeremy Cohen, “Christian Theology and Anti-Jewish Violence in the Middle Ages: Connections and Disjunctions,” in Religious Violence, 44-47 and Jonathan Riley-Smith in the next footnote; John France, The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000-1714 (London: Routledge, 2005), 59. Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84-85.
7. FN77 Jonathan Riley-Smith has viewed the crusade as a religious event and an expression of sincere piety. Riley-Smith, “The First Crusade and the Persecution of the Jews,” Studies in Church History, 21 (1984), 51-72, especially 67 and 69; idem, The First Crusade, 55-57 and The Crusades: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 24; H.E.J. Cowdrey, “Martyrdom and the First Crusade,” in Peter W. Edbury, ed., Crusade and Settlement (Cardiff: University College Cardiff Press, 1985), 46-56; Jean Flori, “Une ou plusieurs ‘premièr croisade’?, 17; on the inability of Europeans to distinguish between Jews and Muslims see Allan Harris Cutler and Helen Elmquist Cutler, The Jew as Ally of the Muslim: Medieval Roots of Anti-Semitism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986). Although one may disagree with the Cutlers’ theory, the connection they have made between events in the East and anti-Jewish violence in the Latin West is of value to this study. Israel J. Yuval discusses the vengeance motif in Two nations in your womb: perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006), 141-2 and n. 17 for bibliography. The idea of crusading as vengeance as been recently revised by Susanna A. Throop, Crusading As an Act of Vengeance, 1095-1216 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). In contrast to Riley-Smith’s view, Throop argues that “although there was some emphasis on vengeance from 1095 through 1137,” the concept of crusading as vengeance appears more in the Latin accounts of the early twelfth-century, therefore, questioning the role of vengeance in the attacks, 70-71. This important book came out after I had submitted this article for review and, therefore, was not available to me when writing this article. I thank the anonymous reviewer for bringing Throop’s book to my attention. The vengeance motif is discussed below.
8. FN88 Paul Alphandéry and Alphonse Dupront, La chrétienté et l’Idée de croisade (Bibliothèque de l’evolution de l’humanité, 10) (Paris: A. Michel, 1995). André Vauchez, “Les Composantes Escatologiques de I’déa de Croisade,” in Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade: actes du Colloque universitaire international de Clermont-Ferrand, 23-25 juin 1995. Collection de l’Ecole française de Rome, 236 (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1997), 233-243. Benjamin Z. Kedar, “The Forcible Baptisms of 1096: History and Historiography,” in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte: Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen dargebracht, ed. Herde, Peter, Karl Borchardt, and Enno Bünz (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1998), 1:187-200; idem, “Crusade Historians and the Massacres of 1096,” Jewish History 12:2 (1998), 11-31. Riley-Smith, The Crusades, 24-25. Robert Chazan, “Let Not a Remnant or a Residue Escape”: Millenarian Enthusiasm in the First Crusade,” Speculum 84/2 (2009), 289-313. Bernard McGinn plays down the impact of apocalyptic beliefs, “Iter sancti sepulchri: the piety of the first crusaders,” in Essays on Medieval Civilization: The Walter Prescott Webb memorial lectures, 12, Sullivan, Richard Eugene, Bede K. Lackner, and Kenneth R. Philip (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1978), especially 47f.
9. FN99 Marcus, “Hierarchies, Religious Boundaries and Jewish Spirituality in Medieval Germany,” Jewish History 1:2 (Fall, 1986), 7. Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), 64, 87, 93-99, especially 97; idem, “At the Frontiers of Faith,” in Religious Violence between Christians and Jews, 138-156. But anti-Jewish sentiments among crusaders from southern France are mentioned in Le Liber de Raymond d’ Aguiliers, ed. John Hill and Laurita Hill (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1969), 115. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 106-7, 110-111.
10. FN1010 Sanctifying the Name of God, 1-4.
11. FN1111 Benjamin Z. Kedar, “Croisade et jihad vus par l’ennemi: une etude des perceptions mutuelles des motivations,” in Autour de la Première Croisade, ed. Michel Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), 345-358. Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 48-50. David R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto, Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Rolling Armour, Sr., Islam, Christianity, and the West: A Troubled History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 63-66; Rodney Stark lists a number of attacks against Christian pilgrims before the Seljuk invasion. God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009), 91-92. Asbridge, The First Crusade, 16-19.
12. FN1212 Hinrich Hagenmeyer, Epistulae et chartae ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes. Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088-1100 (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1973), 136; English translation is available in Peters, The First Crusade, 42.
13. FN1313 Peters, The First Crusade, 44-46; Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 61.
14. FN1414 Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:12-13, 15.
15. FN1515 Fulcher of Chartres in Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana (1095-1127) (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1913), 135-136. English translation is available in Harold S. Fink, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127 (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1969).
16. FN1616 Robert the Monk, “Historia Iherosolimitana,” RHC Oc. III:728. English translations are available in Sweetenham Carol, Robert the Monk’s History of the First Crusade [Historia Iherosolimitana], Crusade texts in translation, 11. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 80, and also in Peters, The First Crusade, 26-29.
17. FN1717 Baldric of Dol, “Historia Jerosolimitana,” RHC Oc. IV:101. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade, 48-49. Flori, La Première croisad, 38, 51.
18. FN1818 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III, book VI, II; Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s, 147. Similar words were ascribed by Robert to Kebogha’s mother. God promised to “render vengeance to mine enemies and will reward them that hate me” (Deuteronomy, 32:41). Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s, 155. Also the letter of crusaders from the battlefield to Urban: “we the pilgrims of Jesus Christ avenged (vindicavimus) the harm to Highest God.” Fulcher of Chartre, Hagenmeyer, Fulcheri Carnotensis, 291. And again, Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:729. Peters, The First Crusade, 28. More examples in Susanna Throop, “Vengeance and the Crusades,” in Crusades 5 (2006), 21-38. In four of the five Latin eyewitness accounts about Urban’s call there were almost no references to vengeance of any kind, according to Throop, 24. In her book, Throop argues that only two letters of the First Crusade, and the forged Encyclical of Sergius IV show that the idea of crusading as vengeance existed in the late eleventh century. Among the eyewitness accounts in Latin, Throop found reference to vengeance only in the accounts of Fulcher of Chartres, Peter Tudebode, Raymond of Aguilers, and the Gesta Francorum. Crusading as an act of vengeance, asserts Throop, is more prominent in the sources written by non-participants in the early twelfth century. Her findings lead Throop to conclude that the idea of vengeance was not a widespread popular belief before the First Crusade, 44-52. Still, there is no telling how dominant vengeance was in the unrecorded speeches that circulated in the open air. It is possible that the frequent references to vengeance in the early twelfth-century accounts were a reflection of an existing popular idea among the first crusaders. References to vengeance in the non-monastic Gesta Francorum may indicate such a reflection among crusaders, Gesta Francorum, 17, 54. Requests in the account that God take vengeance on his enemies do not diminish the power and popularity of vengeance. How is God to take vengeance if not through his devoted crusaders who perceived the crusade as an act of imitatio Christi? The presentation of vengeance as a divine act makes vengeance a theological obligation during the crusade. It may also be argued that the more frequent references to vengeance in the accounts of non-participants attest to the existence of the idea in Europe, our place of interest here. Indeed, Throop does indicate that vengeance as a theological and social idea existed in medieval Christendom before 1095, and “was in circulation at the time of the First Crusade,” 47. Another preexisting concept of vengeance was the Germanic Blutrache, according to Israel J. Yuval, “Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Accusations” (in Hebrew) Zion 58 (1993): 33-90, especially 41. The question, then, is not of existence, but of degree and terminology.
19. FN1919 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 135. In addition to the need to defend Christendom, medieval social codes required that vengeance be taken right way. Throop, Crusading as Vengeance, 21-22.
20. FN2020 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 114; Peters, The First Crusade, 35. On the eschatological impact of the conflict see Jean Flori, L’Islam et la fin des temps: l’interprétation prophétique des invasions musulmanes dans la chrétienté médiévale (Univers historique. Paris: Seuil, 2007). The alarming letter of the Patriarch of Jerusalem to those in the West emphasizes the superiority of the Muslim armies and kingdoms. Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Epistulae et chartae ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes. Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, 146-149.
21. FN2121 Balderic of Dol, “Historia Jerosolimitana,” RHC Oc. IV:12-16, my emphasis. Peters, The First Crusade, 30, 31. Again, Urban made similar accusations in his letter to the Faithful of Flanders, see n. 12 above.
22. FN2222 Fulcher of Chartres, in Hagenmeyer, Fulcheri Carnotensis, 134-135.
23. FN2323 Urban delivered his messages in the open air. His preaching was well organized and his messages repeated in local ceremonies and assemblies. The key to Urban’s success, writes Christopher Tyerman, “lay in the incorporation of existing images and emotions into a fresh concept of secular spirituality.” Tyerman, God’s War, 66, 74-75; Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 56-60; and see again Claster, Sacred Violence, 34-39. According to Guibert of Nogent, the emotional reaction that immediately followed Urban’s call traveled faster than the organized preaching, making it superfluous. Guibert of Nogent, Dei Gesta, 124.
24. FN2424 Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, publié par John H. Hill et Laurita Hill (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1977), 32.
25. FN2525 For this violation and its consequences see Kenneth Stow, “Conversion, Apostasy, and Apprehensiveness: Emicho of Floheim and the Fear of Jews in the Twelfth Century,” Speculum 76/4 (2001), 911-933.
26. FN2626 As the sources indicate, not all the crusaders and townspeople participated in the violence against the Jews. Why different people react differently to a condition is another enigmatic question that will require a thorough investigation of individuals; an investigation that our sources do not permit. In any case, the question that this article is trying to answer is not why some acted violently while others did not. Rather, as stated from the outset, the goal is to find out why those who acted violently acted in this manner and what inspired their modes of violence.
27. FN2727 Albert of Aachen, “Recueil Des Historiens Des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux” (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1844-1895) (hereafter RHC Oc.), IV:295. Latin text and English translation are available in Susan Edgington, Historia Ierosolimitana (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 56-59.
28. FN2828 Albert of Aachen, RHC Oc., IV:292. Edgington, Historia Ierosolimitana, 50-51.
29. FN2929 RHC Oc. IV:292; Edgington, Historia Ierosolimitana, 50-51; Peters, The First Crusade, 110.
30. FN3030 Historia Ierosolimitana, RHC Oc. IV:293. Although not consistent in his use of terminology, Albert distinguished between “pilgrims” and “soldiers,” RHC Oc., IV:371; or “Christ’s soldiers, the pilgrims, and their princes,” RHC Oc., IV:416.
31. FN3131 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 401-405; Chazan, European Jewry, 273-275. On the Jewish report of Cologne see Robert Chazan, “The Deeds of the Jewish Community of Cologne,” Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984), 185-195.
32. FN3232 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 407-409; Chazan, European Jewry, 273-275.
33. FN3333 Bribe prevented an attack by Duke Godfrey in Cologne. Haverkamp, Hebräische, 297. But according to the Solomon bar Simson account, “ultimately, all the bribes and entreaties were of no avail to protect us on the day of wrath and misfortune,” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 295. Or in the case of Emicho, “we dispatched seven pounds of gold to the evil Emicho, but it was of no avail,” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 311.
34. FN3434 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 116; Peters, 36-37.
35. FN3535 Ekkehard of Aura, “Hierosolymita,” 39.
36. FN3636 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 116. Peters, The First Crusade, 37.
37. FN3737 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:791-792; Haverkamp, Hebräische, 347.
38. FN3838 Annales Brunwilarenses: “Strages Iudaeorum Coloniae et Mogunitae a peregrinis facta est.” MGH S. I:100; XVI:726. My emphasis.
39. FN3939 Historia Ierosolimitana, 1:292-293; translation in Edgington, 51-53.
40. FN4040 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, 1:292. The Mainz Anonymous states that the “errant ones gathered, the nobles, and the commoners from all the provinces” participated in the attacks. The account mentions the nobleman Ditrma by name. Haverkamp, Hebräische, 261; Chazan, European Jewry, 226.
41. FN4141 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 359, emphasis mine; Chazan, European Jewry, 239, 258-259. On the function of the term “sleeves” see Ivan G. Marcus, “The Representation of Reality in the Narratives of 1096,” Jewish History 13:2 (Fall, 1999), 37-48, especially 40-41. Jeremy Cohen carefully investigated Rachel’s story in Sanctifying the Name of God, ch. 6. See also Yuval. Two Nations in Your Womb, 158-159.
42. FN4242 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 353, 359-361; Chazan, European Jewry, 238, 239; 258, 260.
43. FN4343 Emicho in Haverkamp, Hebräische, 309; Chazan, European Jewry, 251. Meshulam’s poem in Abraham M. Habermann and Yitzhak Baer, Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ṿe-Tsarefat: divre zikhronot mi-bene ha-dorot shebi-teḳufat mas’e ha-tselav u-mivḥar piyuṭehem (Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1945), 71 (hereafter Sefer Gezerot). Annales S. Disibodi, MGH S., 17:16.
44. FN4444 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 361, 385; Chazan, European Jewry, 238, 266-267. For Worms, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 283-285; Chazan, European Jewry, 229. Additional descriptions in Haverkamp, Hebräische, 275-277; Chazan, European Jewry, 245.Treatment of bodies, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 433; Chazan, European Jewry, 280. See also Haverkamp, Hebräische, 369; Chazan, European Jewry, 241, 261. Haverkamp, Hebräische, 389; Chazan, European Jewry, 267. In Worms, those who escaped the first attack are said to have provided garments for the dead. It is not clear who buried the Jewish martyrs in Xanten. Eva Haverkamp suggests that the burial motif follows the same theme in Sigebert’s Passio about the Christian martyrs there. “Martyrs in rivalry: the 1096 Jewish martyrs and the Thebean Legion,” Jewish History 23/4 (2009), 323-324, 327. Annalista Saxo, MGH S. 37:491. “. . . eratque miseria spectare multos et magnos occisorum acervos efferri in plaustris de civitate Mogontia.” A poem by R. Abraham depicts similar episodes of men and women being dragged naked in Mainz. Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 62.
45. FN4545 Jeremy Cohen associates the stripping of bodies with Jesus’ crucifixion. “The Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in their Christian Cultural Context,” Juden und Christen, 27. Susan Einbinder has suggested a sexual connotation to the stripping of female bodies. “Jewish Women Martyrs: Changing Models of Representation,” Exemplaria 12 (2000), 117-119. David Malkiel sees the stripping of bodies as a literary motif rooted in the biblical story of Saul’s suicide. Reconstructing Ashkenaz, 292 n. 11.
46. FN4646 Robert Chazan rightly argues that the medieval period suffered from general lawlessness and violence. European Jewry, 15, 33-34, 36. In the case of Mainz, Chazan writes: “Reflected here is a cruel thoroughness that goes beyond ordinary military behavior,” European Jewry, 71. As far as we can tell, previous incidents of anti-Jewish violence did not produce such brutality. The serious allegations that the Jews were involved in the destruction of the Holy Sepulcher generated anti-Jewish violence in Europe in the eleventh century. But the brutality that is described in the Jewish and Christian sources does not match that of 1096. On this event and the false accusations see Marius Canard, “Destruction de l’Église de la Résurrection,” Byzantion 35 (1965), 16-43; Robert Chazan, “1007-1012: Initial Crisis for Northern-European Jewry,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research XXXVII-XXXIX (1970-1971), 101-117; Richard Landes, “The Massacres of 1010: On the Origins of Popular Anti-Jewish Violence in Western Europe,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, ed. Jeremy Cohen (Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien, Bd. 11. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), 79-112; John France, “The Destruction of Jerusalem and the First Crusade,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 47 (1996), 1-17, especially 8-10; Daniel F. Callahan, “The Cross, the Jews, and the Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes, in Christian Attitudes toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: A Casebook, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York, NY: Routledge, 2007), 15-23; Phyllis G. Jestice, “A Great Jewish Conspiracy? Worsening Jewish-Christian Relations and the Destruction of the Holy Sepulcher” in Christian Attitude, 25-42; Tomaž Mastnak, Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 38-39. Jewish and Christian reports mentioned additional anti-Jewish persecutions in eleventh-century France and Germany. In these cases, too, the descriptions of violence differ greatly from those of 1096. In most cases, the outcome was martyrdom and mainly expulsion. See Shepkaru, Jewish Martyrs, 143-153. Nor did the holy campaign of the Spanish Reconquista produce the type of violence seen in 1096. Pope Alexander II’s admonition against Jewish violence certainly helped. See again Stow, “Conversion, Apostasy, and Apprehensiveness,” 919; Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 150, 161. Perhaps also helpful was the lack of preaching in the style and intensity of the propaganda of the First Crusade.
47. FN4747 Trier Jews gave as bribe “even the praying cloak [talit] on their shoulders.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 471-473; Chazan, European Jewry, 288-289.
48. FN4848 Alexander Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages. Volume 2, The Curse on Self-Murder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 23-34, 36-37. The St. Alban’s author provides an exceptional positive designation for the Jewish victims, Eva Haverkamp, “What did the Christians Know? Latin Reports on the Persecutions of Jews in 1096,” Crusades vol. 7 (2008), 74.
49. FN4949 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 116, my emphasis. Peters, The First Crusade, 36-37. Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 112; Peters, The First Crusade, 34.
50. FN5050 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:727, Peters, The First Crusade, 27.
51. FN5151 Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:14; Peters, The First Crusade, 31, my emphasis.
52. FN5252 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 359; Chazan, European Jewry, 259. The term appears also in the story of Samuel bar Mordechai to indicate “his intestines.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 367; Chazan, European Jewry, 241.
53. FN5353 “ventres eorum iam mortuorum findebant, ut de intestinis eorum bisantios excerperent, quos vivi faucibus diris transglutiverant. Quapropter post dies aliquot, acervo magno de cadaveribus facto et cinere tenus combusto, aurum memoratum in eodem cinere facilius repererunt.” Fulcher of Chartres, in Hagenmeyer, Fulcheri Carnotensis, 301-302. Besants are gold coins.
54. FN5454 Gesta Francorum, 42, my emphasis. Also, when some crusaders at Antioch “could not satisfy their needs . . . they ripped up the bodies of the dead, because they used to find besants hidden in their entrails.” 80.
55. FN5555 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 473, Chazan, European Jewry, 288-289. For Trier see Robert Chazan, “The Trier Unit of the Lengthy Hebrew First Crusade Narrative,” Between History and Literature: Studies in Honor of Isaac Barzilay, ed. Stanley Nash (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1997), 37-49; idem, “Christian and Jewish Perceptions of 1096: A Case Study of Trier,” Jewish History 13:2 (1999), 9-22; Eva Haverkamp, “ ‘Persecutio’ und ‘Gezerah in Trier während des Ersten Kreuzzugs,” Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, ed. Alfred Haverkamp. Vorträge und Forschungen, Bd. 47 (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1999), 35-71. Taunting: Haverkamp, Hebräische, 259; Chazan, European Jewry, 225. Gesta Treverorum, MGH S. VIII:190.
56. FN5656 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III, book III, ch. XV, my emphasis; Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s, 112. A similar statement exists in the Gesta Francorum: “If God wishes we will become rich today,” 19-20. For veneration of martyrs in Germany, see Haverkamp, “Martyrs in rivalry,” 327.
57. FN5757 In the name of God Peter the Hermit extorted from Jews. According to Guibert of Nogent, in the cities and towns outside Gaul, Peter “was very liberal in the distributing to the poor of what he had received. . . . For in whatever he did or said it seems as if there was something divine (subdivinum). . . .” Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 121; Peters, The First Crusade, 103. Ekkehard of Aura mentioned Peter’s celestial letter in “Hierosolymita,” RHC Oc. V:40. In the cities outside Gaul, Peter extracted money from the Jews. Haverkamp, Hebräische, 471; Tyerman, God’s War, 95. Jean Flori, Pierre l’ermite et la première croisade (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 271. Urban allegedly had promised those short of money that “divine compassion will take care of the deficit” (ac si ei denariorum deesset copia, divina ei satis daret misericordia). Petrus Tudebodus, Historia De Hierosolymitano Itinere, ed. John H. Hill and Laurita L. Hill (Paris, Paul Geuthner, 1977), 32. Or, “The possessions of the enemy, too, will be yours, since you will make spoil of their treasures and return victorious to your own.” Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:15. Peters, The First Crusade, 32.
58. FN5858 Urban’s view according to Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:727; Peters, The First Crusade, 27. Solomon’s view in Haverkamp, Hebräische, 269; Chazan, European Jewry, 245.
59. FN5959 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 349; Eidelberg, The Jews, 84; Haverkamp, Hebräische, 345: “when will the robber come”; Haverkamp, Hebräische, 269: “devoured Israel;” Chazan, European Jewry, 245; Haverkamp, Hebräische, 339: “the innocent poor”; Haverkamp, Hebräische, 443; Chazan, European Jewry, 283.
60. FN6060 Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 63; Annales S. Disibodi, MGH S. 17:16. Diripiebantur with occidebantur (they killed), stresses its multi-meaning.
61. FN6161 Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 87, my emphasis.
62. FN6262 Baldric of Dol used a similar line in his version of Urban’s speech.
63. FN6363 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 403. A similar scene took place in Worms, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 269.
64. FN6464 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 315; Chazan, European Jewry, 252.
65. FN6565 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 381, 383; Chazan, European Jewry, 265. See also Jeremy Cohen, “Gezerot Tatnu,” 189.
66. FN6666 Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th Centuries) 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 51-52, 65, 139, 145 for discussions on Christ’s image on coins, for instance.
67. FN6767 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 112; Peters, The First Crusade, 34.
68. FN6868 Baldric of Dol, 14. Peters, 31.
69. FN6969 Robert the Monk, III:727; Peters, 27.
70. FN7070 Baldric of Dol, 13, my emphasis; Peters, 30.
71. FN7171 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:727, Peters, The First Crusade, 27.
72. FN7272 Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:13; Peters, The First Crusade, 30, my emphasis.
73. FN7373 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 299, 301, 315, 333, 375; Chazan, European Jewry, 249, 252, 255, 262. Similar statements by Urban such as, Muslims “now polluted the Holy City and the glory of the Sepulcher as much as in their power.” Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 112; Peters, The First Crusade, 34; Jerusalem “the city of our glory,” Peters, The First Crusade, 296; and the Turks took from the Temple of Solomon the offerings and the alms, Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:13; Peters, The First Crusade, 30.
74. FN7474 Urban II, “Epistolae et privilegia,” Patrologiae cursus sompletus, Series Latina, comp. ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1844-1864), 151, n. 20, cols. 302-3; Bernard of Clairvaux, Sancti Bernardi opera, ed. J. Leclercq (Rome, 1957-1977), vol. 7 Ep. 64, 158.
75. FN7575 As Robert the Monk called the crusaders, RHC Oc. III:746, 747.
76. FN7676 That was the case in Worms according to Bernold of St. Blasien. Chronicon, MGH S. V:464-465.
77. FN7777 All the city dwellers of Worms reportedly implored Mistress Minna to “see and know that God does not wish to save you, for ‘they [the Jews] lie naked at the corner of every street’ (Isa. 51:20), without a grave; sully [i.e., baptize] yourself.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 289; Chazan, European Jewry, 231. Similarly, Rabbi Simkhah ha-Cohen was ordered to convert because “behold, all of them have already been killed and lie naked.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 287; Chazan, European Jewry, 231. This practice appears to have yielded some results. At Worms, the Jews were killed, dragged through the streets, stripped naked, and left unburied. When the survivors “saw their brethren naked and the modest daughters of Israel naked, they then acceded to them [the crusaders] under great duress . . . There were those who said: ‘Let us do their will for the time being, and let us go and bury our brethren and save the children from them.’ ” The survivors are also said to have “sent garments with which to clothe those who had been killed through those who had been saved.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 283-285; Chazan, European Jewry, 229.
78. FN7878 “The enemy gathered together against the saintly ones . . . in order to torture them with great and terrible tortures until they agreed to baptism. The matter became known to the pious ones. They confessed before their Creator and they volunteered and chose for themselves five pious and saintly ones . . . who would slaughter all the others.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 427; Chazan, European Jewry, 278.
79. FN7979 On the problem of conversion for Jews and Christians see Stow, “Conversion, Apostasy, and Apprehensiveness;” Jeremy Cohen, “Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1999), 431-471; Friedrich Lotter, “ ‘Tod oder Taufe’. Das Problem der Zwangstaufen während des Ersten Kreuzzugs,” in Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzüge, ed. A. Haverkamp, Vorträge und Forschungen, Bd. 47 (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1999), 107-152; Alfred Haverkamp, “Baptised Jews in German Lands during the Twelfth Century,” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, eds. M.A. Michael, A. Singer, and J. Van Engen (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press 2001), 255-310; Shmuel Shepkaru, “Death Twice Over: Dualism of Metaphor and Realia in 12th-Century Hebrew Crusading Accounts,” Jewish Quarterly Review 93 (2002): 217-256. According to Eva Haverkamp, it is possible that the Xanten martyrs were first baptized. Haverkamp, “Martyrs in rivalry,” 324, 334.
80. FN8080 “Did not wish to kill them” in Trier, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 479, Chazan, European Jewry, 292; in Moers, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 445-449, Chazan, European Jewry, 284; in Regensburg, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 481; Chazan, European Jewry, 293; forced baptism in Worms, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 277; Chazan, European Jewry, 245. On Regensburg see also Joseph Hacker, “On the Persecutions of 1096” (Hebrew), Zion 31 (1996), 229-231.
81. FN8181 MGH S. III:134. See also the “Annales Hildesheimenses,” MGH S., VIII:49-50 (Hannover: Monumenta Germaniae, 1878). Cosmas of Prague, Die Chronik der Böhmen des Cosmas von Prague (Berlin: B. Bretholz, 1923), 164-166.
82. FN8282 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 114-115; Peters, The First Crusade, 35.
83. FN8383 Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:14; Peters, The First Crusade, 31. Jesus as the suffering servant in Matt. 12:15-21; Acts 8:32-35; John 12:37-38.
84. FN8484 Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV:13. Peters, The First Crusade, 30.
85. FN8585 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:727-728. Peters, The First Crusade, 27.
86. FN8686 Gesta Francorum, 4; Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, 35-36.
87. FN8787 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:727. My emphasis.
88. FN8888 “Nam pueros et iuuenes Christianorum circumcidunt super baptisteria Christianorum et circumcisionis sanguinem in despectum Christi fundunt in eisdem baptisteriis et desuper eos mingere compellunt et deinceps in circuitu ecclesiae eos uiolenter deducunt et nomen et fidem sanctae Trinitatis blasphemare compellunt. Illos uero nolentes ea diuersis poenis adfligunt et ad ultimum eos interficint.” Hagenmeyer, Heinrich. Epistulae et chartae ad historiam primi belli sacri spectantes. Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, 131. My emphasis.
89. FN8989 Events in Muslim Cordova in the ninth century reveal the Christian sensitivity to circumcision. Even voluntary circumcision of Christians was seen as capitulation to Islam and as a mark of disgrace. Jessica A. Coope, The Martyrs of Cordoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 58, 82-83; 87-88.
90. FN9090 Guibert of Nogent reported with great pleasure how a French Jew genuinely converted to Christianity, “which in our days is unusual,” after the crusaders’ massacre in Rouen in 1096. Benton, Self and Society, 137.
91. FN9191 According to Stow, these forced conversions and the insincere Christians they created greatly disturbed the Christian Chroniclers. Stow writes: “Albert, Ekkehard, and the other Christian chroniclers were furious with Emicho and those like him for having contravened the law—to be precise, the fundamental legal and theological axiom of freely chosen faith on which the whole of Christian belief rested—and in the process having created a body of unbelieving Christians and ultimately apostates.” “Conversion, Apostasy, and Apprehensiveness,” 927.
92. FN9292 Without denying the difficulties in applying modern theories to historical events (it would be equally difficult to prove that the parallels only represent a shared literary device. Did the Jewish authors read the Latin sources?), I believe, some fundamental human characteristics can stimulate near-universal behaviors. The theory of displacement is obviously modern, but the phenomenon it describes is not. The comparable examples of violent behaviors, therefore, indicate, that among the possible stimuli for the attacks against the Jews, an urge to displace played a role in the massacres of the Jews in 1096.
93. FN9393 John H. Duckitt, The Social Psychology of Prejudice (New York, NY: Praeger, 1992), 71, and see also 52-53, 62-64, 90, 102-104, 149-150. Treatments of displacement often open with references to René Girard’s philosophical anthropological approach to violence. According to Girard’s general hypothesis, “any community that has fallen prey to violence or has been stricken by some overwhelming catastrophe hurls itself blindly into the search for a scapegoat. Its members instinctively seek an immediate and violent cure for the onslaught of unbearable violence . . . ” Girard’s definition, however, is too general for our case. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 84, and see his discussion in chapters 1 and 10, and The Scapegoat (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), especially, 1-23, 198-221. Other consulted works are: John Dollard, Neal E. Miller et al., Frustration and Aggression (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980); Error Without Trial: Psychological Research on Antisemitism. Current research on Antisemitism, ed. Werner Bergmann (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988), 2:12-21, 39; Leonard Berkowitz, Aggression: Its Causes, Consequences, and Control (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993), 77-78, 265-266; idem, Aggression: a Social Psychological Analysis (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1962), especially chapter 6. Dolf Zillmann, Hostility and Aggression (Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1979), 120-144 and chapter 6. Freud, Anna, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (New York, NY: International Universities Press, 1967). Langmuir briefly mentioned displacement in his general discussion, but did not apply it to the events of 1096. Toward a Definition of Antisemitism, 322, 338.
94. FN9494 Tom Douglas, Scapegoats: Transferring Blame (London: Routledge, 1995), 112, and additionally, chapters 4-7.
95. FN9595 Arnold H. Buss, The Psychology of Aggression (New York, NY: Wiley, 1961), 246, 248, and for more on the subject see 60-70, 245-264.
96. FN9696 As a defense mechanism, displacement frees the aggressor from a sense of helplessness, endowing a sense of purpose and control, creates solidarity within the group, and exonerates the aggressor from any blame, related and unrelated to the victim. Douglas, Scapegoats, 115 (my emphasis).
97. FN9797 A similar desire to displace anger to a reachable target emerges in the following example: “It is now winter, we cannot now go overseas [my emphasis] . . . But we can do a good thing! . . . There is a city near here, Zara is its name. Those of that city have done wrong to me, and I and my men would like to avenge ourselves, if we can . . . And the city of Zara is very fine and very full of all good things.” Throop gives this example in a different context of vengeance. Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, 25.
98. FN9898 The attackers circulated the message that “anyone who kills one Jew will have all his sins forgiven.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 261; Chazan, European Jewry, 226. According to Raymond of Aguilers, Jesus himself promised in a vision a place in the hierarchy of heaven to those who assist the crusaders. See Shepkaru, “To Die for God: Martyrs’ Heaven in Hebrew and Latin Crusade Narratives,” Speculum 77 (2002), 322. Although not referring to Jews, the vision is indicative of the notion that the non-participants must assist the crusaders in different ways. This sits well with Throop’s general observation that medieval social and religious codes required faithful Christians to assist in the act of vengeance. Throop, Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, 57-65.
99. FN9999 The Spaniard Yudah ha-Levi (c. 1075-1141) made a similar association: “Christian and Muslims fight with one another, each of them serving his God with pure intention . . . committing murders . . .” Judah ha-Levi, The Kuzari, trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld (New York, NY: Shocken Books 1964), part 1, s. 2, 39.
100. FN100100 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:727, 728; Peters, 27, 28.
101. FN101101 Baldric of Dol, 13, 14; Peters, 30, 31.
102. FN102102 Haverkamp, 249. See there also the identical description by Eliezer bar Nathan; Eidelberg, 279. Chazan, 243, for Solomon bar Samson.
103. FN103103 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 403; Chazan, European Jewry, 274. Eliezer bar Nathan labeled the killers of infants and pregnant women “a nation of fierce countenance that does not respect the old nor show favor to the young.” Haverkamp, 329; Eidelberg, 83. The phrase appears also in his poems, Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 83; 84, for example.
104. FN104104 “Hic siquidem habebant in professione ut vellent ulcisci Christum in gentilibus vel Iudeis.” MGH S. 6:729. My emphasis. Throop discusses the vocabulary of vengeance in chapter one, Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, and, 5-6, 56-57, 70. It is significant that the term that the Annalista Saxo used for vengeance upon the Jews is the same term that is often used for vengeance on the Muslims.
105. FN105105 According to John V. Tolan, the La Chanson d’ Antioche did blame the “pagan” Muslims for the crucifixion. Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 109. Also Riley-Smith, The First Crusade, 55-56, followed by Malkiel, Reconstructing Ashkenaz, 75. In my view, vengeance for the “death of the Father” is a general symbolic expression of vengeance for the ongoing “crimes” against the Christians. This non-historical report reflects the sentiments of its late twelfth-century author. See once more Throop, “Vengeance and the Crusades,” 21-27.
106. FN106106 Jeremy Cohen has dealt with this myth in “The Jews as the Killer of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983), 1-27. According to Cohen, the accusation became popular in the twelfth century, 11.
107. FN107107 Buss, The Psychology of Aggression, 247, 250, and 257: prejudice subjects do tend to displace more.
108. FN108108 Throop writes: “Again and again the sources suggest a link between crusading and anti-Jewish violence, and again and again the ideas of vengeance and the crucifixion crop up; but it is nevertheless impossible to state concretely, based upon the sources for this period, that the Jews were attacked in 1096 because the First Crusade saw the overall crusade as an act of vengeance.” Crusading as an Act of Vengeance, 70. It must be stressed, however, that the stories of the crucifixion and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem were told mainly in the context of the Muslims’ occupation of the Holy Land and their aggression against Christians, not in the context of the Jews as killers of Christ. Throop is correct to say that it is impossible to state concretely that the Jews were attacked in 1096 as revenge for killing Christ. The question, then, is: what motivated men and women to carry out the massacres. Here, I believe, the theory of displacement comes in handy.
109. FN109109 Israel J. Yuval has shown in a number of studies that the Hebrew narratives were more concerned with God’s vengeance upon the Christians. “Vengeance and Damnation, Blood and Defamation: From Jewish Martyrdom to Blood Libel Accusations” (in Hebrew) Zion 58 (1993), 33-90. This concern mirrors the general atmosphere of vengeance at the time.
110. FN110110 According to an early response of the Rhineland Jews to their coreligionists in France, they had no reason to fear the approaching crusaders.
111. FN111111 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 295-297; Chazan, European Jewry, 247.
112. FN112112 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 315-317; Chazan, European Jewry, 252.
113. FN113113 RHC Oc. IV:292; 272.
114. FN114114 Ekkehard of Aura, RHC Oc. 20; Frutolf of Michelsberg, Chronica, in Frutolfi et Ekkehardi Chronica Anonymi Chronica Imeratorum, ed. Franz-Josef Schmale and Irene Schmale-Ott (Darmstadt, 1972), 108. On Frutolf and other texts see Haverkamp, “What did the Christians Know?”, 59-85, 71-72.
115. FN115115 Translation in John F. Benton, Self and Society, 134-135.
116. FN116116 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 304.
117. FN117117 Benton, Self and Society, 134 n. 1.
118. FN118118 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 253; Chazan, European Jewry, 244.
119. FN119119 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 301; Chazan, European Jewry, 249, 233. As noted, the Latin accounts tend to refer to the Muslim enemy in the plural, and the Jews in the singular. The Anonymous does not mention the vengeance motif here.
120. FN120120 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 299; Chazan, European Jewry, 248.
121. FN121121 Contempt and ingratitude constitute the reasons for the massacres in Bishop Egilbert’s view. Egilbert exhorted the Jews of Trier to convert, saying: “Oh Miserable Ones, now turn away from your sins, of which this is the result. Blaspheming the son of God and disgracing His most holy birth; you have denied that He came to life in the flesh. You have scorned his mother with your words. Behold! Now this is the reason that you have come to this desperate time in your lives. Therefore, I say to you: if you persist in this faithlessness, you will lose your body as well as your soul.” Gesta Treverorum, MGH S. 8:190-191 and Patrologiae cursus completes latina, eds. Jacques-Paul Migne and Georg Heinrich (1881), 154:1207a-b. Egilbert reiterated Urban’s general grievance that Christians became “a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing, and derision to them.” Baldric of Dol, RHC Oc. IV: 14; Peters, The First Crusade, 31.
122. FN122122 See Solomon again about the events in Mainz: “The end result proves the initial intention (B. Baba Batra 138a)” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 293. Eliezer bar Nathan applied the same literary motif to describe the assailants’ goals and the Jewish reaction. “They [the attackers] left only a few alive and had their way with them, forcibly immersing them in their filthy waters; and the later acts of those thus coerced are testimony to this beginning, for in the end they regarded the object of the enemy’s veneration as no more than slime and dung.” Haverkamp, Hebräische, 271; Eidelberg, The Jews, 81, my emphasis.
123. FN123123 Robert the Monk, RHC Oc. III:731, my emphasis; Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s, 83.
124. FN124124 RHC, Oc., IV:292. Chazan has pointed out the significance of this statement. European Jewry, 66-67.
125. FN125125 This desire to achieve an immediate vicarious victory by attacking the Western Jews may explain why crusaders were more tolerant of the Jews in Palestine, even though the latter fiercely fought the crusaders together with the Muslims. S.D. Goitein, “Geniza Sources for the Crusader Period: A Survey,” Outremer, ed. Kedar, Mayer and Smail, 308; idem, “contemporary Letters on the Capture of Jerusalem by Crusaders,” Journal of Jewish Studies, 3 (1952), 162-167; Riley-Smith, The First Crusade, 55.
126. FN126126 Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 115-116, my emphasis. Peters, The First Crusade, 36.
127. FN127127 Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 115.
128. FN128128 Bernard’s letter 365 in Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. J. Leclercq et al. (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957-1977), 8:316. According to Ephraim, Bernard preached: “It is good for you to go [fight] against the Ishmaelites, but whoever touches a Jew to take his life, is like one who harms Jesus himself.” Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 116.
129. FN129129 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 261; Chazan, European Jewry, 226. David Berger discusses the positive and negative implications of Bernard’s position in “The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux Toward the Jews,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research XL (1972), 89-108.
130. FN130130 Peter the Venerable, Epistulae 130, in The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. Giles Constable (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), I:327-330. According to Ephraim, the French King Louis VII adopted the same policy. “Anyone who has volunteered to journey to Jerusalem shall have his debt forgiven, if he is obligated to the Jews,” declared the king. Ephraim in Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 121.
131. FN131131 Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 130.
132. FN132132 Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 161.
133. FN133133 Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 131.
134. FN134134 Haverkamp, Hebräische, 247; Chazan, European Jewry, 243.
135. FN135135 Chazan, European Jewry, ch. VI; Robert Chazan discusses the deterioration in the conditions of European Jews in Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997), especially chapters 4-7. See also, Ivan G. Marcus, “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz,” in David Biale Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York, NY: Shocken Books, 2002) 484; Shepkaru, Jewish Martyrs, 259-262.
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2012-01-01
2015-12-06
10.1163/157006712X634576
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Affiliations: 1: Department of History, The University of Oklahoma 455 West Lindsey Street, Room 403A, Norman, OK 73019-2004 USA

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