The Preaching of the First Crusade and the Persecutions of the Jews
In: Medieval EncountersDepartment of History, The University of Oklahoma 455 West Lindsey Street, Room 403A, Norman, OK 73019-2004 USA
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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.
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1
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.
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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.
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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.
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11
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.
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12
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.
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13
Peters, The First Crusade, 44-46; Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 61.
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16
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.
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17
Baldric of Dol, “Historia Jerosolimitana,” RHC Oc. IV:101. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade, 48-49. Flori, La Première croisad, 38, 51.
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19
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.
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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.
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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.
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Fulcher of Chartres, in Hagenmeyer, Fulcheri Carnotensis, 134-135.
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31
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.
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32
Haverkamp, Hebräische, 407-409; Chazan, European Jewry, 273-275.
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36
Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 116. Peters, The First Crusade, 37.
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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.
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Haverkamp, Hebräische, 353, 359-361; Chazan, European Jewry, 238, 239; 258, 260.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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52
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.
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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.
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Habermann, Sefer Gezerot, 63; Annales S. Disibodi, MGH S. 17:16. Diripiebantur with occidebantur (they killed), stresses its multi-meaning.
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63
Haverkamp, Hebräische, 403. A similar scene took place in Worms, Haverkamp, Hebräische, 269.
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65
Haverkamp, Hebräische, 381, 383; Chazan, European Jewry, 265. See also Jeremy Cohen, “Gezerot Tatnu,” 189.
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67
Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 112; Peters, The First Crusade, 34.
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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.
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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.
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Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta, 114-115; Peters, The First Crusade, 35.
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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.
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Tom Douglas, Scapegoats: Transferring Blame (London: Routledge, 1995), 112, and additionally, chapters 4-7.
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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.
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103
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.
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111
Haverkamp, Hebräische, 295-297; Chazan, European Jewry, 247.
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112
Haverkamp, Hebräische, 315-317; Chazan, European Jewry, 252.
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114
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.
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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.
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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.
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The Preaching of the First Crusade and the Persecutions of the Jews
In: Medieval EncountersDepartment of History, The University of Oklahoma 455 West Lindsey Street, Room 403A, Norman, OK 73019-2004 USA
Search for other papers by Shmuel Shepkaru in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
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.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 8317 | 1871 | 444 |
| Full Text Views | 959 | 101 | 11 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 1449 | 253 | 34 |