The Crusades
The quest to
“liberate” the Holy Land and Christianity from heretics
By Joshua Levy
While the Crusades
were a holy war against Muslims, the term “crusade” is also used more generally
to mean a campaign against those who did not believe in the Christianity of the
Church. While the following article outlines the origins and consequences of
the Crusades to recapture the Holy Land for Christianity, it is important to
recognize that the Church also conducted crusades against heretics, or groups of
Christians that did not agree with official church doctrine.
For example, in the 13th century,
Pope Innocent III launched a crusade to destroy the Albigensians, a group
judged heretical for their dualist theology. The crusade was “successful” after
50 years of bloodshed. The legacy of this crusade includes the Inquisition, a
mobile tribunal that judged heretics based on information obtained through
torture and secret testimony. The
Inquisition would play a central role in Jewish history when it was established
in fifteenth century Spain as a means of dealing with the crypto-Jewish
population there.
The Crusade for the Holy Land: The First Crusade of 1096
The origins of the Christian Crusade to liberate the Holy
Land are found in the spread of a warrior Asiatic tribe. In 1071, the Seljuk Turks defeated the
Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert, thereby occupying all of Asia Minor,
including Palestine. As stories of
atrocities committed against Christian pilgrims filtered back to Europe, the
Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus appealed for help against the Seljuks. Pope Urban II called for a crusade against
the Muslims in 1095. The stated goal of
this crusade was to recapture the Holy Land and ensure safety for Christian
pilgrims visiting sacred sites.
However, many of the crusaders saw it as the perfect opportunity to
serve God and simultaneously make a fortune in looting and ransom.
By 1096, a large army (25,000-30,000 men) was prepared for
battle. They marched from southern
France to Constantinople, where friction immediately arose between the
Byzantines, who were unprepared for such an army, and the crusaders. In 1097, the crusaders left Constantinople
and marched towards Jerusalem, which fell in 1099. The goal of the Crusade had been achieved. In celebration, the crusaders ruthlessly
slaughtered all of the Muslim inhabitants of the city. The Jewish community in
Palestine was forced to surrender to the new rulers, or face execution.
The Crusades Devastated the Jewish Rhineland
The events of 1096 temporarily stopped the intellectual and
social activity of Ashkenazic Jewry. Urban II’s call for the Crusade did more
than arouse interest in the armies that went to Jerusalem. Two other groups formed, both of which
harmed the Jews: itinerant preachers and bands of German peasants. For the most part, the itinerant preachers
were only interested in exploiting the Jews financially, demanding money for
provisions. The peasant groups were
much more dangerous. These bands
coalesced around a charismatic leader and engaged in spontaneous violence
against Jews.
In the early stages of the Crusade, these latter groups
destroyed the Jewish communities in Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. There are accounts of these peasants
ruthlessly slaughtering defenseless people, attacking Jews while in synagogue,
and storming royal buildings to massacre the Jews.
Acts of Jewish Martyrdom Met Crusader Violence
These anti-Jewish attacks reveal an interesting trend in
medieval Jewry: the willingness of the Jews to die for their faith. This act, known as kiddush ha-Shem (sanctification of the Divine Name), was quite
common, according to the three extant Hebrew chronicles of the First
Crusade. These chronicles report Jewish
parents killing their children in a manner similar to Abraham’s near sacrifice
of Isaac and Jews examining knives to ensure that the killing of their brethern
was done according to the laws of kashrut. In some instances, Jewish martyrs insulted
their Christian attackers before being killed as a way of displaying their
ultimate faith in God.
The Legacy of the First Crusade
Even though a large percentage of Rhineland Jewry was
destroyed in these events, French Jewry escaped unscathed. The First Crusade did a great deal to expose
how vulnerable Ashkenazic Jews were, but the status of the Jews in the eyes of
royal authorities did not change. The
authorities had not instigated the violence; in many instances, the authorities
attempted to protect the Jews.
While the events of 1096 debilitated Rhineland Jewry, the
First Crusade should not be seen as a watershed event that inevitably lead to
the decline of Ashkenazic Jewry.
Several Rhineland Jewish communities were destroyed, but they rapidly
rebuilt in the early 12th century. Jewish economic activity
flourished; moneylending in particular, increased as subsequent crusading
ventures needed cash. There was
certainly no decline in intellectual creativity among Ashkenazi Jews; the study
of law continued, although the focus shifted from Germany to northern France.
Later Crusades Spurred Jewish Travel to Palestine
Although Crusades continued over the next 300 years,
subsequent crusades did not affect the Jews in the same way. After the events in the Rhineland in 1096,
the Church realized the importance of reigning in the popular armies and
protecting the Jews. During the Second
Crusade, the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, the moving spirit behind the
Crusade, condemned anti-Jewish preaching and actions. However, Bernard’s
rationale demonstrated that anti-Jewish sentiment was alive and well: for
Bernard, the Jews were living witnesses to what happened to Jesus. Their dispersion throughout the world served
as proof of their guilt and of Christian redemption.
Interestingly, the Jews of Europe were motivated by the
journeys of Christians to the Holy Land, and aided by the increased maritime
transportation between Palestine and Europe, to make a greater number of
pilgrimages themselves. For example, “The Aliyah
of Three Hundred Rabbis” occurred in 1211. This emigration of several hundred
rabbis from western Europe (mostly France and England) marks the beginning of
an active period of aliyah that
continued through the 13th century.
Joshua Levy is a doctoral candidate in the department of
Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, studying medieval Jewish
history. His dissertation, “’Sefer Milhamot Hashem’, Chapter Eleven: The
Earliest Jewish Critique of the New Testament,” is an examination of medieval
Jewish criticisms of the Gospel of Matthew.
