The Slaughter of the Jews (ca. 1096)

The Crusades were a catastrophe for Europe’s Jews. As armies of crusaders moved through Europe, they joined with local Christians in horrific attacks on Jewish communities. This account of anti-Jewish violence by an anonymous Jewish resident of Mainz, a German city in which more than one thousand Jews were killed, provides a sense of the ferocity of the attacks. As you read it, think about what it tells you about the position of Jews in medieval Europe. Why were they the targets of such intense hatred? What means of defense, if any, did they have against the hostility of their Christian neighbors?

I shall begin the account of the former persecution. May the Lord protect us and all Israel from persecution.

It came to pass in the year one thousand twenty-eight after the destruction of the Temple1 that this evil befell Israel. There first arose the princes and nobles and common folk in France, who took counsel and set plans to ascend and “to rise up like eagles” and to do battle and “to clear a way” for journeying to Jerusalem, the Holy City, and for reaching the sepulcher of the Crucified,2 “a trampled corpse” “who cannot profit and cannot save for he is worthless.” They said to one another: “Behold we travel to a distant land to do battle with the kings of that land. ‘We take our souls in our hands’ in order to kill and to subjugate all those kingdoms that do not believe in the Crucified. How much more so [should we kill and subjugate] the Jews, who killed and crucified him.” They taunted us from every direction. They took counsel, ordering that either we turn to their abominable faith or they would destroy us “from infant to suckling.” They — both princes and common folk — placed an evil sign upon their garments, a cross, and helmets upon their heads.

When the [Jewish] communities in France heard, they were seized by consternation, fear, and trembling. . . . They wrote letters and sent emissaries to all the [Jewish] communities along the Rhine River, [asking that they] fast and deprive themselves and seek mercy from [God “who] dwells on high,” so that he deliver them [the Jews] from their [the crusaders’] hands. When the letters reached the saintly ones who were in that land, they — those men of God, “the pillars of the universe,” who were in Mainz — wrote in reply to France. Thus was it written in them [their letters]: “All the [Jewish] communities have decreed a fast. We have done our part. May God save us and save you from ‘all distress and hardship.’ We are greatly fearful for you. We, however, have less reason to fear [for ourselves], for we have heard not even a rumor [of such developments].” Indeed we did not hear that a decree had been issued and that “a sword was to afflict us mortally.”

When the crusaders began to reach this land, they sought funds with which to purchase bread. We gave them, considering ourselves to be fulfilling the verse: “Serve the king of Babylon, and live.” All this, however, was of no avail, for our sins brought it about that the burghers in every city to which the crusaders came were hostile to us, for their [the burghers’] hands were also with them [the crusaders] to destroy vine and stock all along the way to Jerusalem.

It came to pass that, when the crusaders came, battalion after battalion, like the army of Sennacherib,3 some of the princes in the empire said: “Why do we sit thus? Let us also go with them. For every man who sets forth on this journey and undertakes to ascend to the impure sepulcher dedicated to the Crucified will be assured paradise.” Then the crusaders along with them [the princes] gathered from all the provinces until they became as numerous “as the sands of the sea,” including both princes and common folk. They circulated a report. . . . “Anyone who kills a single Jew will have all his sins absolved.” Indeed there was a certain nobleman, Ditmar by name, who announced that he would not depart from this empire until he would kill one Jew — then he would depart. Now when the holy community in Mainz heard this, they decreed a fast. “They cried out mightily to the Lord” and they passed night and day in fasting. Likewise they recited dirges both morning and evening, both small and great. Nonetheless our God “did not turn away from his awesome wrath” against us. For the crusaders with their insignia came, with their standards before our houses. When they saw one of us, they ran after him and pierced him with a spear, to the point that we were afraid even to cross our thresholds. . . .

It came to pass on the tenth of Iyyar, on Sunday, “they plotted craftily against them.” They took “a trampled corpse” of theirs, that had been buried thirty days previously and carried it through the city, saying: “Behold what the Jews have done to our comrade. They took a gentile and boiled him in water. They then poured the water into our wells in order to kill us.” When the crusaders and burghers heard this, they cried out and gathered — all who bore and unsheated [a sword], from great to small — saying: “Behold the time has come to avenge him who was crucified, whom their ancestors slew. Now let not ‘a remnant or a residue’ escape, even ‘an infant or a suckling’ in the cradle.” They then came and struck those who had remained in their houses — comely young men and comely and lovely young women along with elders. All of them stretched forth their necks. Even manumitted servingmen and serving-women were killed along with them for the sanctification of the Name which is awesome and sublime, . . . who rules above and below, who was and will be. Indeed the Lord of Hosts is his Name. He is crowned with the splendor of seventy-two names; he created the Torah nine hundred and seventy-four generations prior to the creation of the world. There were twenty-six generations from the creation of the world to Moses, the father of the prophets, through whom [God] gave the holy Torah. Moses came and wrote in it: “The Lord has affirmed this day that you are, as he promised you, his treasured people which shall observe all his commandments.” For him and his Torah they were killed like oxen and were dragged through the market places and streets “like sheep to the slaughter” and lay naked, for they [the attackers] stripped them and left them naked.

From August Charles Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eye-Witnesses and Participants (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1921), pp. 76–78.