Speculum Volume 84 Issue 02 2009 (Doi 10.1017/S0038713400018054) Chazan, Robert - "Let Not A Remnant or A Residue Escape" - Millenarian Enthusiasm in The First Crusade

"Let Not a Remnant or a Residue Escape":
Millenarian Enthusiasm in the First Crusade

By Robert Chazan
The First Crusade, which continues to attract scholarly and popular attention,
was dramatic, sprawling, and complex. It involved the rapidly evolving papacy
and innovative papal initiatives, the newfound military prowess and religiosity of
the warrior class of Western Christendom, the emergence of popular preaching
and radical views of Christianity in general and the crusading expedition in particular, and wide-ranging spiritual exhilaration and militancy within the broad
European populace. The remarkable successes of the crusading armies that conquered Jerusalem during the summer of 1099 created a natural focus for the historical records that were composed at the time and have continued to provide
such a focus ever since. Four contemporary narratives penned by participants in
the successful expedition have set the parameters for much of the subsequent
recounting and analysis of this fascinating and complicated juncture in the history
of medieval Western Christendom.1
As attention has turned increasingly to the ideas and ideals that set in motion
the innovative venture, the thinking of the organized church leadership and the
baronial participants in the successful enterprise has necessarily taken pride of
place. There has been awareness, to be sure, that the papal announcement set in
motion unexpected responses all across the European social spectrum, but the full
range of those responses has been difficult to track, largely because of the nature
of the data that have survived.2 Especially intriguing has been the issue of millenarian expectations associated with the call to the crusade. A number of historians
This study has been long in the writing. I want to thank three distinguished colleagues who read
and commented on draftsProfessors Eva Haverkamp, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Haym Soloveitchik. My deepest appreciation to all three.
1
These eyewitness narrators include the anonymous Gesta Francorum, Raymond of Aguilers,
Fulcher of Chartres, and Peter Tudebode, with the first two dominating subsequent historical writing.
Note also the later and derivative accounts of Guibert of Nogent, Baldric of Bourgueil, and Robert
the Monk, all three of which were heavily dependent on the Gesta Francorum. All these narratives
focus on the travails encountered by the ultimately successful militias and on the remarkable conquest
of Jerusalem.
2
The most interesting recent explorations of this thinking include Marcus Bull, Knightly Piety and
the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony c. 970-c. 1130 (Oxford, 1993);
Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131 (Cambridge, Eng., 1997); Jonathan Phillips,
ed., The First Crusade: Origins and Impact (Manchester, Eng., 1997); Marcus Bull et al., eds., The
Experience of Crusading, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Eng., 2003); and Christopher Tyerman, Fighting for
Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades (Oxford, 2004). A number of major overviews of the First
Crusade have appeared over the past decade and accord considerable discussion to the ideas behind
the expedition. These include Jean Richard, Histoire des croisades (Paris, 1996); Jonathan Phillips,
The Crusades, 1095-1197 (Harlow, Eng., 2002); Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History
(Oxford, 2004); and Christopher Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge,
Mass., 2006).
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Millenarian
Enthusiasm
have argued that eschatological anticipation was associated with the onset of the
First Crusade. The evidence for that thesis has, however, been exceedingly slim,
leading most recent historians either to downplay it or to dismiss it entirely.
Until recently, only two historiansNorman Cohn and Jean Florihad addressed at all seriously the apocalyptic element in First Crusade thinking.1 Quite
recently, Flori has expanded his treatment of the apocalyptic elements in the First
Crusade considerably, in his L'islam et la fin des temps.4 Flori's new treatment is
rich and thoughtful. He begins by emphasizing the scope and diversity of the First
Crusade, then turns to a discussion of the diverse motivations behind the crusading
enterprise. Flori points to the emergent consensus that the motives were largely
religious and identifies elements such as the creation of a dignified religious position for the warrior class, the important role of penitence, and the influence of
potential martyrdom. He emphasizes an irredentist element in the First Crusade,
that is to say, the sense that the Holy Land was Christian territory taken by others
but was destined to be returned by God one day to its rightful owners. Implicit
in the First Crusade, according to Flori, was the sense that this time had arrived.5
From this discussion of the motivations for the First Crusade, Flori moves on
to an analysis of the prophetic-eschatological dimensions of the undertaking, adducing a range of sources to establish the reality of millenarian thinking among
some crusading contingents. Again, Flori exhibits full recognition of the diversity
of the various crusading groups and the related variations in crusader thinking
and motivation. In his presentation Flori highlights the presence of the prophetic
and eschatological among the bands responsible for assaults on Rhineland Jewish
communities in 1096, although the evidence he adduces is quite limited.
It is well known that the call to the First Crusade occasioned inter alia antiJewish violence, particularly in the Rhineland. A number of major Rhineland
Jewish communities were wiped out in their totality. Three Hebrew accounts of
these attacks have survived and provide rich evidence on the 1096 assaults and
the radical Jewish responses to them.6 Since one of the three Hebrew accounts
' Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, rev. ed. (New York, 1970), pp. 61-70; and Jean Flori, haPremiere croisade:
L'Occident chretien contre l'islam, Historiques 107 (Brussels, 1997), pp. 40-54. The foci of these two
studies differ markedly. Cohn is concerned with a broad swath of socioreligious movements, while
Flori is concerned solely with diverse aspects of the First Crusade. In neither study is the case for
millenarian enthusiasm rigorously argued.
4
Jean Flori, L 'islam et la fin des temps: L 'interpretation prophetique des invasions musulmanes dans
la chretiente medievale (Paris, 2007), pp. 250-81. In his study of the role of Count Emicho in the First
Crusade, Matthew Gabriele makes some valuable observations on the impact of apocalyptic thinking
on that shadowy figure; see "Against the Enemies of Christ: The Role of Count Emicho in the AntiJewish Violence of the First Crusade," in Christian Attitudes toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: A
Casebook, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York, 2007), pp. 61-82.
5
The relationship of the irredentist thinking on the Italian and Iberian peninsulas to this facet of
crusade thinking is a theme worth pursuing.
6
The three Hebrew First Crusade narratives were published in a critical edition with German translation by Adolf Neubauer and Moritz Stern, Hebra'ische Berichte iiber die Judenverfolgungen wdhrend
der Kreuzziige (Berlin, 1892). The narratives were republished by Avraham Habermann, Sefer Gezerot
Ashkenaz ve-Zarfat (Jerusalem, 1945). These prior editions have now been superseded by the new
critical edition with German translation by Eva Haverkamp, Hebra'ische Berichte iiber die Judenver-
Millenarian Enthusiasm
291
incorporates a number of previously composed narratives, we are in fact provided

with five separate voices depicting from a Jewish perspective the events of 1096.
These five voices are (1) the chronicle of the so-called Mainz Anonymous, a narrative that moves from the onset of the crusade in France through the appearance
of French crusaders in the Rhineland and the arousal of crusading fervor among
the German populace and on to the fate of the Jewish communities of Speyer,
Worms, and Mainz, where it is suddenly and unfortunately cut shorta number
of recent scholars have concluded that this narrative was composed shortly after
the events themselves; (2) a unit in the composite Solomon bar Sitnson Chronicle
devoted to the fate of the Jewish community of Trieragain this unit seems to
have been composed fairly close to the events themselves; (3) a unit in the composite Solomon bar Sitnson Chronicle devoted to the fate of the Jewish community
of Colognethis unit seems to have been composed in 1140, not long before the
onset of the Second Crusade; (4) the portions of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle produced by its medieval editor, which begin with an adaptation of the chronicle of the Mainz Anonymous and then proceed to an account of the Cologne
community, the Trier community, and a few additional Jewish communities as
well; and (5) the Eliezer bar Nathan Chronicle, which is a prose abridgment of
the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle embellished with valuable liturgical poems.
The first two of the five compositions were roughly contemporaneous with the
events themselves and are especially useful in providing rich insight into both
Christian and Jewish thinking.7
The present paper focuses on one aspect of the 1096 assaults, the commitment
on the part of some Rhineland crusaders and burghers to wipe out Jewish enclaves
in their entirety. I shall argue that this unusual cast of mindby no means shared
even by all those involved in the 1096 anti-Jewish violencesuggests millenarian
enthusiasm in segments of the crusading and noncrusading population. The evidence for this millenarian enthusiasm comes largely from a close reading of the
Jewish accounts of the 1096 violence, combined with the more cursory evidence
provided by two Christian chroniclers focused on events in the Germanic lands
Albert of Aix and Ekkehard of Aura.8 Since the evidence drawn from the Hebrew
folgungen wdhrend des Ersten Kreuzzugs (Hannover, 2005). The Haverkamp edition presents the
Hebrew text in two formats, first comparatively with the three texts lined up side by side and then in
a straightforward presentation. In general, I shall cite the latter. An English translation of all three
narratives was provided by Shlomo Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders: The Hebrew Chronicles
of the First and Second Crusades (Madison, Wis., 1977). Translations of the chronicle by the Mainz
Anonymous and the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle are also available in Robert Chazan, European
Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, Calif., 1987). Throughout this paper I shall cite the Hebrew
texts in the Haverkamp edition (as Haverkamp, with citation of the Hebrew pagination) andbecause
of its accessibilitythe Habermann edition (as Habermann); I shall also cite the two English translations (as Eidelberg and Chazan, with quotations taken from the latter). Important recent observations
on these texts can be found in Jeremy Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish
Memories of the First Crusade (Philadelphia, 2004).
7
Thefivevoices are described in detail in Robert Chazan, God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew
First Crusade Narratives (Berkeley, Calif., 2000), pp. 19-111, where the case for dating thefiveelements is adduced.
8
Albert's Historia Hierosolymitana is now available in a new edition and translation: Albert of
Aachen, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. and trans. Susan B. Edgington (Oxford, 2007). Ekkehard's
briefer Hierosolymita can be found in Recueil des historiens des croisades, historiens occidentaux, 5
vols. (Paris, 1844-95), 5:10-40.
292
narratives shows that Jews were aware of the millenarian enthusiasm that permeated some of the crusading bands and their noncrusading accomplices, I shall
further ask whether this millenarian enthusiasm may have been absorbed to an
extent by the Jewish victims of the 1096 violence. The conclusions as to Christian
and Jewish millenarian thinking, reached on the basis of the Jewish and Christian
sources from Germany, will then be reinforced by a curious Jewish source from
Byzantium. Finally, I shall also note the striking contrast between Jewish fate
during the First Crusade and Jewish circumstances in the subsequent major crusades and suggest that the presence of millenarian expectations in the former and
the lack of such expectations in the latter constitute important factors in understanding the differences.
Let me begin by reviewing the data provided by the Rhineland Hebrew narratives.
The Mainz Anonymousone of the two early Hebrew voicesbegins his account
by orienting the reader to the beginnings and nature of the First Crusade:
It came to pass in the year one thousand twenty-eight after the destruction of the [Second]
Temple 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"
[Obadiah 1.4] and do battle and "to clear a way" [Isaiah 40.3, 57.14, 62.10] for journeying to Jerusalem, the Holy City, and for reaching the sepulcher of the Crucified.9
Reflected here is a Rhineland Jew's perspective on the First Crusade, as he saw it,
andgiven what we know of the early stages of the crusade from other sources
it is focused and perceptive. The crusade is viewed as a French initiative; it is
correctly understood as involving a combination of elements in the French population; the objective of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre is fully recognized. Despite the rich allusions to biblical verses, there is no tendency to accommodate the
crusade to biblical instances of danger and threat. The Mainz Anonymous was
fully grounded in the realities of 1096. He continues by quickly noting the deflection of crusading fervor against the Jews, crucial to the saga he was about to
unfold.10 He then depicts the fright of the French Jews and their reactions to the
new threat, which is contrasted with the tragic lack of awareness of the crusade
and its dangers on the part of the Rhineland Jews.
It is with the passage of French crusadersin all likelihood the large band that
coalesced around Peter the Hermitinto the Rhineland that the body of the story
told by the Mainz Anonymous commences. The earliest phase of the story includes
the following elements:
(1) the crusaders demand funding to be utilized for provisions; the Jews comply, and these
French crusading bands pass peacefully eastward;11
(2) the appearance of the French crusading bands arouses the animosity of the Rhineland
burghers against the Jewsaccording to the Mainz Anonymous, "their [the burghers']
' Haverkamp, 88; Habermann, 93; Eidelberg, 99; Chazan, 225.

10
See below, p. 303, for this important citation.
11
See below, pp. 295-96, for the corroborating and fuller information provided in the Trier account.
293
hands were also with them [the crusaders] to destroy vine and stock all along the way to
Jerusalem";12
(3) the appearance of the French crusading bands also arouses Rhineland barons to take
the crossonce again crusade fervor quickly translates into anti-Jewish sentiment, with a
rumor spreading that "anyone who kills a single Jew will have all his sins absolved"and
the Mainz Anonymous cites one particular Rhineland nobleman named Ditmar, "who
announced that he would not depart from this empire until he would kill one Jewthen
he would depart";13
(4) the Jews of Mainz, deeply distressed over all this accelerating danger, fast and pray for
relief;
(5) incidental crusader violence breaks out, to the point that the Jews are "afraid even to
cross [their] thresholds."14
The initial assault depicted by the Mainz Anonymous took place in Speyer; it
involved a ragtag combination of crusaders and burghers who attacked the Jews
on their way out of the synagogue on Sabbath morning, taking eleven Jewish lives.
This poorly conceived and organized assault was met with the determined resistance of the local bishop, who then took the further step of placing his Jews in
fortified rural redoubts in order to insure their ongoing safety. Speyer Jewry was
thus only minimally affected by the 1096 violence, in stark contrast with what
was to happen in Worms, Mainz, and Cologne.
The first of the devastating attacks depicted by the Mainz Anonymous took
place in Worms. There, the Jewish communitynot yet fully alerted to the profound dangers associated with crusadingdivided itself into two segments, a part
of the community electing to seek safety with non-Jewish neighbors and friends
and a second group opting for the protection of the bishop's palace. The Mainz
Anonymous portrays in some detail the destruction of both camps. In depicting
the fate of the former group, the author describes a plot to arouse both crusaders
and burghers against the Jews. A recently interred Christian corpse was exhumed
and paraded through the town, with the allegation that the Jews had boiled the
cadaver in water and had then poured the water into the town wells in order to
poison the Christian populace.15 The ploy produced the anticipated outrage. An
ad hoc coalition of crusaders and burghers assaulted the Jews who had sought
safety with neighbors, killing many of these Jews and converting others.
Almost two weeks later, the second set of Jews was assaulted by an expanded
ad hoc coalition, consisting of crusaders, burghers, and villagers from the surrounding area. The tripartite coalition besieged and attacked the episcopal palace,
overran it, and killed the Jews. The author depicts a variety of heroic Jewish
reactions. He also adds the story of a Jewess who had survived both assaults by
12
Haverkamp, 88; Habermann, 94; Eidelberg, 100; Chazan, 226. Again, see below, pp. 295-96,
for the corroborating and fuller information in the Trier account.
" Haverkamp, 88; Habermann, 94; Eidelberg, 100; Chazan, 226. It is worth recalling the exhilarated
reaction of Bohemond of Taranto to the appearance of crusaders and his immediate decision to join
the expedition. See Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. and trans. Rosalind Hill
(Oxford, 1962), p. 7.
14
Haverkamp, 90; Habermann, 94; Eidelberg, 100; Chazan, 227.
15
This incident was a crucial factor in the initial sense of the account by the Mainz Anonymous as
a late composition.
294
hiding outside town with friends but who met her death at the hands of her
erstwhile protectors, convinced that the Jews had been abandoned by God.
The centerpiece of the story told by the Mainz Anonymous is its account of the
destruction of Mainz Jewry, which followed a much different pattern from events
in Speyer and Worms. The Jews of Mainz learned quickly what had happened at
Speyer and Worms and sought the protection of their archbishop. No longer willing to entrust themselves to the care of friendly neighbors, the Jews of Mainz
struck an agreement with the archbishop, with almost all of them seeking safety
in the archbishop's palace.16 The destruction of the Jewish community of Mainz
was not carried out by an ad hoc coalition; rather, it was perpetrated by an organized crusading band led by a Rhineland nobleman, Emicho of Flonheim. Count
Emicho and his militia reached the walls of Mainz on Sunday, May 25. The Jews
of Mainz, fully aware of the peaceful passage of Peter the Hermit and his followers
in return for financial assistance, attempted to win over Count Emicho in the same
way but were quickly rebuffed. Peter the Hermit and Count Emicho were moved
by differing sentiments with regard to crusading and its implications relative to
the Jews.
The gates to Mainz had been locked by the anxious archbishop, but they were
quickly opened to Count Emicho and his band by sympathetic burghers. On Tuesday, May 27, the crusading militia entered Mainz and made straight for the archbishop's palace, where most of the Jews were sequestered. Abandoned by the
archbishop and his followers, the Jews attempted to hold off their attackers but
failed to do so. Making their way into the palace, Emicho's followers committed
a protracted and thorough massacre of the Jews they found therein. Jews refused
escape from death through baptism, submitting to the swords of Emicho's followers orin many caseschoosing to take their own lives and the lives of loved
ones. Count Emicho's commitment to the utter destruction of Mainz Jewry is
manifest in the description of what happened in the archbishop's palace. Indeed,
after destroying the bulk of Mainz Jewry in this way, his crusading militia proceeded to hunt down the few remaining Jews of Mainz in their alternative refuges.
While the Cologne unit of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicleseemingly written a number of decades after the events of 1096is less interested in depicting
the details of the Christian assaults and more focused on heroic Jewish responses
only, the portrayal of the fate of the Jews of Cologne does provide some interesting, albeit less fully developed, reflections of the Christian attacks. The Cologne
unit indicates that the very first violence suffered by the Jews of Cologne was
perpetrated by burghers and largely involved plunder of homes and desecration
of the synagogue. A few Jews who made the mistake of venturing forth from their
refuges lost their lives. Subsequently, the archbishop of Cologne moved his Jews
out of town, spreading them among seven rural fortifications.
While the archbishop's ploy was reasonable and in fact had proven successful
in saving the lives of the Jews of Speyer, the Jews of Cologne were systematically
hunted down in their refuges by a crusading band.17 In describing the destruction
16
While most of the Jews of Mainz sought safety in the episcopal palace, there are recurrent references to small numbers of Jews who hid themselves elsewhere.
17
This technique was adopted regularly and successfully in the subsequent crusades.
295
of most of the enclaves of Cologne Jews, the author of the Cologne unit repeatedly
depicts the approach of an armed force.18 Again, lack of concern with the attacks
themselves led the author of the Cologne unit to omit details on the attacking
militia. The conception of crusading reflected in the activity of this militia is highly
reminiscent of Emicho and his followers. The crusading troops who destroyed
almost all of Cologne Jewry were committed to a policy of total destruction.
The Trier unit of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle has been relatively neglected by historians. It lacks the brutality and the heroism related by the Mainz
Anonymous and the Cologne segment of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle. For
my purposes, however, it is invaluable, in that it focuses single-mindedly on one
Jewish community and portrays the complex fate of that one community over a
span of more than two months.
During this extended period of time, the Jewish community of Trier faced a
sequence of challenges, which the author is committed to depicting in all their
diversity:
(1) Peter the Hermit and his followers pass through TrierPeter is described as carrying
with him a letter from the Jews of France, urging fellow Jews to support him with funding
for provisions; the Jews of Trier follow this advice, and Peter's masses leave Trier without
inflicting any harm on the Jewish community;
(2) Peter's success in extracting funds from the Jews emboldens the burghers of Trier also
to extort funds from the beleaguered Jews, who pay them large sums;
(3) frightened, the Jews flee to the bishop's palace;
(4) a house in which the community's Torah scrolls had been hidden for safekeeping is
attacked and the scrolls desecrated; some Trier Jews, accompanied by episcopal functionaries, endanger themselves by proceeding to the safe house and rescuing the desecrated
scrolls;19
(5) the Jews fast, give alms, and tax themselves severely to raise money for extensive bribery;
(6) on Pentecost, a large crowd is addressed by the bishop, who warns them against harming the Jewsthe message proves so unpopular that the bishop has to go into hiding;
(7) the mob then besieges the bishop's palace, where the Jews are sequestered, but is unable
to break into it;
(8) the bishop subsequently argues to the Jews that they have no option other than conversionthe Jews are depicted as steadfastly refusing;
(9) the Jews are given four days for reflection;
(10) the Jews then offer a bribe, which is refused by the bishop's representative;
(11) with a mob of crusaders and burghers surrounding the entrance to the palace, a
delegation of episcopal officials and leading townsmen enters the palace and informs the
Jews that they must either convert or be exposed to the fury of the mob;
18
The appearance of "the enemy," in a manner that suggests an organized militia, is especially
apparent in the Cologne unit's report on the second of the refuges, identified in the later Eliezer bar
Nathan Chronicle as Wevelinghofen (Haverkamp, 50-52; Habermann, 45-46; Eidelberg, 51-53;
Chazan, 275-78); in the report on thefifthof the refuges at Xanten (Haverkamp, 56-60; Habermann,
48-50; Eidelberg, 55-58; Chazan, 280-83); and in the sixth of the refuges, for which negotiations
with a besieging militia are depicted (Haverkamp, 60-64; Habermann, 50-51; Eidelberg, 58-59;
Chazan, 284).
19
Note the claim for heroism on the part of the Jews who accompanied the episcopal functionaries
to the safe house.
296
(12) a few Jews are led out and are killed;

(13) in the face of ongoing Jewish intransigence, the women of the community are led to
church and forcibly baptized;
(14) while the narrative closes with a small number of Jewish women who martyr themselves, it is in fact clear that the bulk of the Jewish community of Trier was forcibly converted.
Treatment of these developments in Germany by Albert of Aachen and Ekkehard of Aura is much slimmer; however, the reportage of the Jewish narrators and
of the two Christian chroniclers dovetails considerably. Like the Jewish narrators,
Albert also highlights the role of Peter the Hermit, his preaching, and the appearance of his forces on German soil. Albert in fact focuses extensively on Peter,
making large claims for the centrality of his role in the First Crusade.20 In the
Rhineland, according to Albert, Peter's appearance and preaching spawned further popular preaching. A band organized around a priest named Gottschalk
moved eastward and met the same ignominious fate suffered by Peter's followers.
Albert also notes the emergence of anti-Jewish sentiment, andlike the Hebrew
narrativeshe is aware of its complex nature. According to Albert, anti-Jewish
activity first broke out in Cologne and initially involved burghers and plunder. As
a result of this initial violence, the Jews of Cologne attempted to flee and were
caught and killed by crusaders. While the story is far less detailed than that found
in the Cologne segment of the Solomon bar Simson narrative, its basic outlines
are consistent with the latter.
Albert focuses his account of anti-Jewish violence on Mainz. Here he identifiesas does the Mainz AnonymousCount Emicho of Flonheim and his band
as the decisive figures. Like the Hebrew narrative, Albert portrays a concerted
effort to kill or convert the Jews of Mainz and radical Jewish resistance. Not
surprisingly, the radical nature of this resistance, so profoundly valorized by the
Jewish observers, was horrifying to the Christian chronicler. Despite the differences in assessment, the Christian narrator reinforces the reality of the extreme
Jewish reactions.
Ekkehard's report on the early aspects of the crusade is even briefer than that
of Albert, but it is useful nonetheless. Ekkehard begins by noting lack of awareness
in Germany of the development of the crusade, which he explains as resulting
from the long-standing tension between the papacy and the empire. In that regard
Ekkehard adds substance to the Hebrew report of German-Jewish insouciance,
which the Mainz Anonymous found so tragic. Like the latter, Ekkehard suggests
that it was the appearance of the army of Peter the Hermit that sparked awareness
of the crusade. Ekkehard complicates the picture somewhat. He reports that the
initial German reaction was derision for those who were willing to leave the familiar for the unknown, their homeland for the remote Holy Land. According to
20
The role of Peter the Hermit in the First Crusadeonce projected as central and subsequently
diminishedhas been discussed again of late. For some of this discussion see E. O. Blake and C.
Morris, "A Hermit Goes to War: Peter and the Origins of the First Crusade," in Monks, Hermits and
the Ascetic Tradition, ed. W. J. Sheils, Studies in Church History 22 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 79-107; Jean
Flori, Pierre I'Ermite et la Premiere croisade (Paris, 1999), pp. 19-29; and Colin Morris, "Peter the
Hermit and the Chroniclers," in Phillips, The First Crusade, pp. 21-34.
297
Ekkehard, two factors served to change views of the crusade. The first was the
appearance of impressive celestial signs; the second was exhilarating preaching,
which Ekkehard views somewhat negatively.
Ekkehard does not provide details on the anti-Jewish violence and does not
have a sense of the complexity of its participants and the thinking underlying it.
He focuses on crusaders and their role in the violence. He singles out Count Emicho and notes the commitment among Emicho's followers either to slaughter the
Jews whom they encountered or to force them to conversion. Like both the Hebrew narratives and Albert, Ekkehard sees the anti-Jewish violence of Count Emicho and his followers as ideological in nature.
From the foregoing it is clear that the Hebrew narratives of 1096 can hardly be
accused of stereotypic reporting. In fact, they present a bewilderingly complex
picture of the early months of crusading in the Rhineland. As noted, the Christian
eyewitness accounts and modern research have focused on the organized bands
of crusaders, especially the successful bands. The Hebrew narratives introduce us
to a far more complex reality. Only two organized militias make an appearance
in the Jewish sourcesthe large popular army that coalesced in France around
the charismatic preacher Peter the Hermit (which did not inflict physical damage
on the Jews) and the baronial force led by Count Emicho of Flonheim (which did).
Neither played any role in the great successes of the First Crusade; both met
disaster early on. Albert and Ekkehard add further nuance to this picture, identifying a number of additional bands that coalesced in the wake of Peter's appearance and preaching, one led by a knight named Walter and two led by priests
named Gottschalk and Folcmar.
The Hebrew narratives introduce us to the reality of individuals who took the
cross and circulated in Christian society prior to linking themselves to crusading
units. Such "floating" crusaders appear recurrently in the Hebrew accounts, often
as participants in the anti-Jewish violence of 1096. Moreover, noncrusaders were
much influenced by crusade preaching and the appearance of crusader bands. Both
burghers and villagers also appear regularly as factors in the anti-Jewish violence
of 1096. "Floating" crusaders, sympathetic burghers, and aroused rural folk could
on occasion join forces with one another and form temporary, active, and destructive groupings alongside the crusading militias.
While many modern treatments of the assaults of 1096 assume that all antiJewish violence was perpetrated by one crusader band or a number of crusader
bands, in fact the careful Hebrew narratives indicate that this was not at all the
case. Crusading sparked anti-Jewish thinking in a number of sectors of northern
European society, and anti-Jewish actions were perpetrated by disparate groupings
of Christiansindividual crusaders; individual burghers; groups of crusaders and
burghers acting in concert; groups of crusaders, burghers, and villagers acting in
concert; and organized crusading militias. Even the most radical forms of antiJewish violence cannot always be traced to organized crusading militias. In
Worms, for example, almost the entire Jewish community was destroyed by an ad
hoc coalition of crusaders and burghers and then an expanded coalition that included rural allies.
The anti-Jewish actions stimulated by the call to the crusade or by the appear-
298
ance of crusaders were even more diversified. Some of the crusade-related antiJewish actions involved Jewish property, which became the object of despoliation
in a number of ways. In both Cologne and Trier, Jewish homes were plundered
by burghers, who were perhaps stimulated to do so by the crusade or at least used
the crusade as a pretext for their depredations. The testimony of the Hebrew
sources is corroborated by Albert, who notes specifically that burghers intent on
plunder perpetrated the initial violence in Cologne.
Peter the Hermit represents another, more orderly, and more principled variation of the expropriation of Jewish property. Peter made Jewish contribution to
his crusading efforts the basis for assuring Jewish safety. In part, this probably
involved simple exploitation of Jewish fears; in part, Peter may have adumbrated
some elemental doctrine of vengeance upon the Jews through utilization of their
goods. The sense that Jewish sinfulness toward Christ and Christianity required
some sort of Jewish material contribution to the crusading enterprise was destined
for a long subsequent history, typified most notably in the letter of Peter the Venerable to King Louis VI on the eve of the Second Crusade.21 Interestingly, the
burghers of Trier, who had seen firsthand Jewish willingness to purchase safety
through payment of funds, proceeded to exploit the Jews in the same way, seemingly without any crusade-related justification.
Yet another style of assault on Jewish property involved the desecration of Jewish sacred space and objects. In Cologne, the synagogue was attacked and desecrated. In Trier, the safe house in which the community's Torah scrolls had been
deposited was invaded; the ornamentation on the scrolls was plundered; and the
scrolls themselves were ripped apart and trampled. In these incidents there is a
sense of wreaking vengeance on the sancta of Judaism for the purported sins of
the Jews.
The crusade-related anti-Jewish activity focused far more intensely on the Jews
themselves than on their property. Some of the killing of Jews was incidental,
related to the plundering already noted. This was the case, for example, in the city
of Cologne, where three Jews who were foolhardy enough to attempt to save some
of their possessions paid with their lives.
Incidental violence was manifest well beyond the spillover from plunder. The
Mainz Anonymous, in his broad depiction of the arrival of the French crusaders
in the Rhineland, speaks of threatening behavior that made the Jews fearful of
stepping outside their homes. While no details are provided, the sense conveyed
is of random violence committed in individual and chaotic fashion. The attack on
the Jews of Speyer seems to have been almost spontaneous in nature and was
poorly organized. The success of Bishop John of Speyer in squelching this early
assault was, in all likelihood, related to its disorganization.
In his broad depiction of the arrival of the French crusaders in the Rhineland,
the Mainz Anonymous adds a curious variant to the physical violence stimulated
by crusading. The early portion of the narrative tells of a rumor that swept through
the Rhineland, suggesting that "anyone who kills a single Jew will have all his
sins absolved." According to the Mainz Anonymous, one particular nobleman,
21
For the letter of Peter the Venerable see Giles Constable, ed., The Letters of Peter the Venerable,
2 vols., Harvard Historical Studies 78 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 1:328-29.
299
Ditmar, said "that he would not depart from this empire until he would kill one
Jewthen he would depart."22 Here anti-Jewish sentiment is shown leading to
the notion of symbolic vengeance. The crusade is perceived as justifying antiJewish action, and that action was to be carried out in limited and symbolic fashion, through the killing of one individual Jew. With the fulfillment of this symbolic
anti-Jewish violence, the main activity of the crusade could then be undertaken.
Clearly, the anti-Jewish sentiment among those who destroyed the Jewish communities of Worms, Mainz, and Cologne was quite different from that of those
who extorted funds, those who engaged in spontaneous and random violence, or
those who sought symbolically to kill one Jew. Among the Christian groupings
that destroyed the Jewish communities of Worms, Mainz, and Cologne almost in
their entirety, the commitment was to extirpate the Jewish population totally,
either physically through slaughter or spiritually through conversion.23
Indications of this radical anti-Jewish commitment abound throughout the Hebrew narratives. As the Mainz Anonymous describes the movement of French
crusaders into the Rhineland and their extortion of funds for provisions, the author indicates sadly that this initial Jewish success meant little, that the passage
of the French crusaders sparked excitement among the German burghers: "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."24 The imagery of cutting off vine and root
is meant to conjure up the sense of a commitment on the part of crusaders and
burghers to the total destruction of Jews and Jewish life.
I have noted the ruse that sparked the first devastating assault on the Jews of
Worms. This was immediately followed by the cry "Now let not 'a remnant or a
residue' [Ezra 9.14] escape, even 'an infant or a suckling' [1 Samuel 15.3] in the
cradle."25 Reflected here once more is the Jewish author's sense of a commitment
to elimination of Jews, this time encompassing a significant segment of the Jewish
community of Worms. In light of this commitment, it is not surprising that the
initial assault in Worms was followed thirteen days later by a more carefully
planned assault on the bishop's palace, where most of the remaining Jews had
sought refuge. The objective of this assault was the elimination of the remainder
of Worms Jewry, and that objective seems to have been realized.
The commitment to total destruction of a Jewish community is reflected most
22
See above, n. 13.

David Malkiel, "Destruction or Conversion: Intention and Reaction, Crusaders, and Jews, in
1096," Jewish History 15 (2001), 257-80, has advanced the view that the Rhineland crusaders and
burghers were in fact oriented toward killing Jews, not toward their conversion. This view has many
problems, including the following: it contradicts the explicit testimony of both the Hebrew and Latin
narrators, who agree in imputing to the popular groupings the desire to kill or convert the Jews; in a
number of instances, protracted negotiations aimed at converting Jews are detailed; crusader intentions
to kill the Jews make the martyrological behavior of the Jews in 1096 incomprehensibleif death was
going to be the result in any case, then the martyrdoms do not make sense; and there is recurrent
mention of Jews killing their children so that they would not fall into the hands of the Christians and
be baptized.
24
25
23
300
fully in the description by the Mainz Anonymous of events in Mainz. Count

Emicho is portrayed at the outset of the account as utterly pitiless, determined to
kill every element in the Jewish community, ranging from the very youngest to the
oldest. As already noted, Count Emicho's intention to destroy Mainz Jewry in its
entirety seems to have been carried out. When his troops, abetted by sympathetic
burghers, made their way into the archbishop's palace, they engaged in a systematic effort to kill or convert every Jew they found. Indeed, upon completion of the
elimination of the Jews gathered in the archbishop's palacewhich surely constituted the overwhelming majority of Mainz JewryEmicho's followers proceeded to hunt down individual Jews who had sought safety elsewhere. They seem
indeed to have been determined to "let not a remnant or a residue escape."
The same determination to wipe out a Jewish community in its entirety is reflected in the Cologne unit of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle. In Cologne, as
noted, the initial violence was perpetrated by burghers, was random, and cost few
Jewish lives. The archbishop of Cologne seems to have decided that distancing his
Jews from the town and placing them in rural fortifications would constitute the
tactic likeliest to preserve them. Whether he knew of the successes of this strategy
in Speyer or simply came to a parallel conclusion is unclear. What both authoritiesthe bishop of Speyer and the archbishop of Colognecounted on was that
the crusading bands would be disinclined to waste time and effort in tracking
down Jews, that they would be occupied with amassing provisions and proceeding
with their ultimate mission. That reckoning, while perfectly reasonable, proved
to be incorrect. An organized military force, in all likelihood the militia of Count
Emicho, hunted down the Jews of Cologne systematically, destroying almost all
the groups of Cologne Jews dispersed into the countryside. The fate of Cologne
Jewry serves as perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the radical policy of destroying Jewish communities in their entirety.
Once again, Albert and Ekkehard corroborate the testimony of the Jewish
sources. Both concur in rooting the most destructive anti-Jewish violence in an
ideological commitment that saw the crusade as oriented in some way toward
total elimination of the Jews either through physical destruction or spiritual conquest. In the case of Albert, he describes the anti-Jewish violence in Cologne and
Mainz as total, resulting in the obliteration of those two sets of Jews; he describes
those involved in the violence as "claiming that this was the beginning of their
crusade and service against the enemies of Christianity."26 Ekkehard depicts Count
Emicho and his followers in the following terms: "Being in this matter as well
zealously devoted to the Christian faith, they busied themselves destroying the
execrable Jewish people wherever they found them or forcing them into the bosom
of the Church."27
The anti-Jewish animus stirred up by the call to the crusade could be channeled
in a number of different directionsfinancial exploitation; the symbolic killing
of a Jew; random anti-Jewish violence; or the planned effort to wipe out groups
of Jews totally, either through slaughter or conversion. Not surprisingly, both the
Hebrew narratives and the few Christian accounts concerned with the anti-Jewish
16
27
Albert of Aachen, Historia Hierosolymitana, pp. 5 0 - 5 1 .

Ekkehard of Aura, Hierosolymita, p. 20.
301
violence focused on the last modality of anti-Jewish action, which involved a

concerted effort to destroy enclaves of Jews completely. Modern scholars have by
and large followed the lead of these sources, especially the Hebrew narratives, and
have likewise focused on these radical efforts. In order to evaluate properly these
extreme actions, however, it is important to remember that they did not constitute
the only anti-Jewish response elicited by the call to the crusade. Setting these
radical anti-Jewish actions in the larger context of a variety of anti-Jewish behaviors associated with crusading raises significant questions as to the thinking that
lay behind the anti-Jewish actions of 1096.
The complex web of anti-Jewish actions spawned by the call to the crusade or
by the appearance of crusaders in fact generates two questions. The first involves
the broad issue of crusade-related anti-Jewish hostility and action. What was it
about crusading that stirred up some crusaders, some burghers, and some rural
folk to anti-Jewish violence of one kind or another? Beyond that first question,
however, lies yet another. What moved some of those stirred up to anti-Jewish
sentiment and action to envisage their anti-Jewish undertaking in radical terms as
an effort to wipe the Jews out entirely? In many ways, the second question is the
more challenging of the two.
The first question has been regularly addressed, with widely accepted answers
readily available. The core crusading ideals of doing battle with and taking vengeance upon the Muslim enemy and of conquering Jerusalem and regaining the
Holy Sepulchre each bore the potential for arousing anti-Jewish hostility. The first,
often accompanied by exaggerated imagery of Muslim cruelty, is directly reflected
in the anti-Jewish slogan reported by both Jewish and Christian sources. Crusaders
bent on assaulting Jews are portrayed as highlighting the more heinous nature of
Jewish enmity toward Christianity. Whatever anti-Christian acts might have been
performed by Muslimsit was allegedpaled in comparison with the Jewish
crime of deicide.28 Thus, the basic crusading notion of a war of vengeance against
the hostile Muslims bore considerable potential for arousing anti-Jewish animus.
It must, of course, be recalled that not all crusaders made the leap from enmity
toward Muslims to enmity toward Jews. Indeed, only a small minority did. That
some crusaders made the leap, however, is hardly surprising.
A second central motif of the crusading enterprisethe reconquest and liberation of Jerusalem and the shrine of the Holy Sepulchresimilarly bore considerable potential for arousing thoughts of the Jews and anti-Jewish animus. As
portrayed in the Gospels and regularly celebrated in Christian ritual and liturgy,
it was, after all, the Jews who allegedly controlled the Jerusalem in which Jesus
preached and was crucified, and it was the Jews who were ultimately responsible
for his crucifixion, out of which the Holy Sepulchre became Christendom's central
shrine. Once again, only a minority of crusaders made this association, but the
fact that some did is not difficult to comprehend.
Understanding the potential for anti-Jewish sentiment in these core crusading
2K
For citation of both Hebrew and Latin sources that portray these notions, see below, p. 303. For
an important analysis of this theme see Jonathan Riley-Smith, "The First Crusade and the Persecution
of the Jews," in Persecution and Toleration, ed. W. J. Sheils, Studies in Church History 21 (Oxford,
1984), pp. 51-72.
302
ideals surely helps us to understand much of the anti-Jewish action portrayed in

the Hebrew sources and in some of the Latin narratives; it still leaves unaddressed
the question of what turned some of those so affected to notions of total extermination of the Jews. I would argue that the explanation for the radical program
of total extermination of the Jews lies with millenarian enthusiasm, which gripped
some of the popular crusading forces and their urban and rural sympathizers. This
millenarian enthusiasm was one of the offshoots of the broad campaign, an offshoot more or less neglected by the medieval Christian narrators andas a resultby modern scholars as well.
One of the interesting questions posed with respect to the popular preaching and
exhilaration of 1095-96 has been the presence or absence of millenarian enthusiasm.29 It seems fairly clear that millenarian thinking did not loom large among
the organized militias that successfully reached Jerusalem and conquered it in
1099.30 However, a few scholarsmost notably Jean Flori in his recent study
have emphasized the importance of this cast of mind in the early and popular
stages of the First Crusade. Flori contends that, among the charismatic preachers
and their enthusiastic followers, the sense of the dawning of a new era was prominent; this senseit is allegedfueled the vigorous preaching and engendered
much of the explosive popular response.31 Close examination of the Hebrew First
Crusade narratives lends considerable support to the suggestions that millenarian
exhilaration was aroused in Rhineland circles by the arrival of the popular crusading band of Peter the Hermit, that this apocalyptic excitement accounts for the
extreme quality of some of the assaults on the major Jewish communities of the
Rhineland, and that the radical Jewish reactions to these assaults indicate Jewish
recognition and absorption of some of the millenarianism.
Two sets of preliminary observations are in order. The first has to do with the
nature of millenarian thinking. Rooted in biblical writings, the sense that a new
day would dawn and that Scripture provides clues as to the dating of the new era
was deeply embedded in medieval Christianity and Judaism. From the Book of
Daniel, medieval Christians and Jews derived considerable fodder for speculating
about the onset of the new era; in addition, Christians had the equally enigmatic
Book of Revelation to enhance their thinking about the end of the present era and
29
1 have wrestled extensively with the terminology that is appropriate to the crusading mood depicted in the Hebrew narratives. I have benefited considerably from the ongoing investigations of both
the phenomenon and the terminology by Bernard McGinn. See especially his Visions of the End:
Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages, Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies, 96 (New
York, 1979), pp. 2 8 - 3 6 . There McGinn discusses the terms "messianism," "millenarianism," and
"apocalypticism." While he is drawn to the breadth offered by the term "apocalypticism," his sense
of "millenarianism" seems to me to fit better the phenomenon discussed in this essay. Building on the
prior work of Norman Cohn, McGinn depicts "millenarianism" as "a particular type of salvationism
which always pictures salvation as collective, terrestrial, imminent, total, and miraculous" (p. 29). To
this I would add that "millenarianism" also generally omits the dark side of the apocalyptic, focusing
instead on the imminent and the positive.
30 R e c a ll that this group has attracted the bulk of the attention of crusade historians. The fullest
treatment of the eschatological element in these organized and successful bands can be found in Flori,
L'islam et la fin des temps, pp. 2 6 7 - 8 1 .
" See above, n. 4.
303
the beginning of the new epoch. Much modern study of medieval millenarian
thinking has revolved around the issue of dating ormore preciselythe relationship of millenarian enthusiasm to numbers and dates. 32 What is important for
my purposes is to note that much millenarian exhilaration was unrelated to numerical clarification and speculation. On occasion, both Christians and Jews were
overcome by the sense of earthshaking developments that shattered the normal
order of things and that presaged the onset of new and different times. The excitement generated by a movement as unanticipated and explosive as the First
Crusade certainly bore the potential for generating such a sense of the new, the
different, the dawning of promised times.
Secondly, we must remind ourselves that those overwhelmed with the excitement of the crusading endeavor and a concomitant conviction that a new stage in
human history had dawned were exhilarated masses, not skilled theologians. It
will be futile to seek out theological clarity and consistency within the thinking
we shall encounter. We should anticipate, rather, a jumble of half-baked notions,
selectively focused on some of the major themes in the millenarian tradition. Lack
of theological sophistication may be lamentable from a number of points of view;
it by no means attenuated the power of the intense convictions we shall encounter
in some sectors of the crusading population.
The Hebrew First Crusade narratives, reflecting Christian thinking and behavior
manifest in the Rhineland, show considerable sensitivity to millenarian strains in
the thinking of the Christian groupings that assaulted Rhineland Jewry. Let me
begin by recalling the opening observations of the meticulous Mainz Anonymous:
It came to pass in the year one thousand twenty-eight after the destruction of the [Second]
Temple 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"
[Obadiah 1.4] and do battle and "to clear a way" [Isaiah 40.3, 57.14, 62.10] for journeying to Jerusalem, the Holy City, and for reaching the sepulcher of the Crucified."
The acuity of these perceptions alerts us to the need for reading the following
sentences carefully. The author proceeds immediately to indicate the deflection of
crusader animosity against the Jews.
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' [Judges 12.3, 1 Samuel 28.21, Job 13.14]
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."'4
The Mainz Anonymous creates a striking disjuncture here. While describing the
crusade as an armed expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre,
he has those diverting hostility against the Jews express an alternative view of the
enterprise. For these crusaders, the objective is total war against the non-Christian
'2 For a heavy focus on numerical calculation see, for example, the work of Richard Landes, in
particular Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989-1034, Harvard
Historical Studies 117 (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), pp. 285-327.
" See above, n. 9.
'" Haverkamp, 88; Habermann, 93; Eidelberg, 99; Chazan, 225.
304
world, in other words, a historic, indeed millenarian undertaking. Again, this is

by no means the author's sense of the entire crusade; it is his perception of a
strandspecifically an anti-Jewish strandin it.
The anti-Jewish crusader slogan is attested, as is well known, beyond the Mainz
Anonymous. Both Guibert of Nogent, writing in the 1120s, and the Solomon bar
Simson Chronicle, composed in the 1140s, include variants on this rallying cry.
The differences between these later versions and the earlier version by the Mainz
Anonymous are instructive. Guibert has the anti-Jewish crusaders arguing:
Traveling long stretches of land, we seek to attack the enemies of God in the East. Yet
before our eyes are the Jews, and there is no people more hostile to God than they.35
Written some time after the events, this version of the anti-Jewish slogan betrays
no sense of apocalyptic enthusiasm. The grounding for the anti-Jewish violence
lies simply in the notion of enemies greater and lesser. The enemies of God in the
East, that is, the Muslimsit is arguedare lesser than the enemies of God at
home, that is, the Jews.
The Solomon bar Simson Chronicle's version of the anti-Jewish slogan, written
in all likelihood in the 1140s, shows similar blurring of the complex realities of
1095-96 perceived and portrayed by the Mainz Anonymous:
Behold we journey a long way to seek the idolatrous shrine56 and to take vengeance
upon the Muslims. But here are the Jews dwelling among us, whose ancestors killed him
and crucified him groundlessly.37
Again, the passage of time effaced the more immediate sense conveyed by the
Mainz Anonymous of intense apocalyptic exhilaration among some of the crusaders, who defined their undertaking in terms of an all-encompassing battle
against the forces of infidelity.
Both the Mainz Anonymous and some of the early material embedded in the
Solomon bar Simson Chronicle reinforce this sense of millenarian exhilaration in
the Rhineland. In its depiction of the ruse that aroused a coalition of crusaders
and burghers in Worms to wipe out the set of Jews who had sought safety in their
neighbors' homes, the Mainz Anonymous portrays the enraged reaction to the
ruse in the following terms: "Behold the time has come to avenge him who was
crucified, whom their [the Jews'] ancestors slew."38 Reflected here is again a sense
of a portentous moment in human history. Jesus had been crucified more than ten
centuries earlier; during the intervening millennium, the church had developed the
teaching that the Jews should not be assaulted for their purported role in that
crucifixion. Yet the Mainz Anonymous depicts those attacking the Jews in Worms
as convinced that a very special moment in human history had arrived, the moment for avenging actions taken more than a thousand years previously. The crusading endeavor is perceived as the backdrop for something new, different, and
epochal on the historical scene.
" Guibert de Nogent, Autobiographic, ed. and trans. Edmond-Rene Labande, Les Classiques de
l'Histoire de France au Moyen Age 34 (Paris, 1981), p. 246.
36
This is a Jewish term of denigration for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
37
Haverkamp, 12; Habermann, 24; Eidelberg, 21; Chazan, 243-44.
!s
Millenarian
Enthusiasm
305
The editor of the later Solomon bar Sintson Chronicle clearly based his account
of the attacks on the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz on the
earlier chronicle of the Mainz Anonymous, with occasional embellishments.39 The
notion of an appointed time for vengeance upon the Jews is reprised but in the
context of the early account of events in Mainz. 40 The editor of the Solomon bar
Simson Chronicle indicates the following general sentiment among the enemies of
the Jews:
You are the descendants of those who killed our deity and crucified him. Indeed he said:
"A day will surely arrive when my children will come and avenge my blood." We are
his children and it is our responsibility to avenge him upon you, for you are the ones
who rebelled and transgressed against him.41
Reflected here once more is the sense of a long-awaited appointed time that has
finally arrived, the time for avenging a crime that took place in the dim and distant
past.
The Mainz Anonymous highlights the radical animosity toward the Jews of one
particular crusading leaderCount Emichobut does not adequately explain it.
As already noted, the Mainz Anonymous remarks early on that some of the French
crusaders crossing over into the Rhineland demanded funding for the purchase of
provisions, a demand to which the Rhineland Jews responded and thus escaped
harm at the hands of the French crusaders. When Count Emicho, defined by the
Mainz Anonymous as "our chief persecutor,"42 makes his first appearance in the
narrative, at the gates of Mainz, the Jewish leaders attempt to buy him off in
the same way, with the additional element of providing him with letters that could
be used with subsequent Jewish communities that he would encounter.43 The
Mainz Anonymous concludes plaintively that these efforts were fruitless, that
Count Emicho was bent on total destruction of the Jewish community of Mainz
and proceeded to carry out his radical intentions.
The editor of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle adds an explanation for the
extreme stance of Count Emicho, which the Mainz Anonymous had highlighted
but left unexplained. In repeating almost verbatim the latter's description of Count
Emicho,44 the editor of the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle inserts the following
fascinating elements:
He became head of the bands and concocted the story that an emissary of the Crucified
had come to him and given him a sign in hisfleshindicating that, when he would reach
39
For clarification of the use of the M a i n z A n o n y m o u s by the editor of the Solomon bar Simson
Chronicle a n d for the role of the editor see C h a z a n , God, Humanity,
and History, p p . 7 0 - 8 2 , a n d
H a v e r k a m p , Hebraische Berichte, p p . 9 3 - 1 1 8 .
40
The early section on Mainz in the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle is quite chaotic.
42
43
Recall fuller mention of such a letter in the Trier unit, above, p. 295.
44
The two depictions of Count Emicho are more or less parallel, with the exception of the passage
cited here.
41
306
Byzantium, then he Jesus] would come to him [Emicho] himself and crown him with
[the] royal diadem and that he would overcome his enemies.45
Here the millenarian element is unmistakable. According to this Hebrew account,
Count Emicho saw himself as singled out by Jesus for a unique and dominant role
on the historical scene.
The sense of Count Emicho as a divinely appointed leader is found as well in
Ekkehard, suggesting that neither the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle nor Ekkehard was creating something out of whole cloth:
Just at that time, there appeared a certain soldier, Emicho, count of the lands around
the Rhine, a man long of very ill repute on account of his overweening manner. Called
by divine revelation, like another Saul as he claimed, to the practice of religion of this
kind, he usurped to himself the command of almost twelve thousand crusaders. As they
were led through the cities of the Rhine and the Main and also the Danube, being in
this matter as well zealously devoted to the Christian faith, they busied themselves destroying the execrable Jewish people wherever they found them or forcing them into the
bosom of the Church.46
Thus, the Mainz Anonymous, the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle, and Ekkehard of Aura concur in noting millenarian elements in the thinking of some of the
popular groupings, stimulated by the call to the crusade or by the appearance of
French crusading forces in the Rhineland. That observation is no means intended
to suggest the ubiquitous presence of such exhilaration among the warriors of the
First Crusade. Such exhilaration was limited; it was, however, prominent in particular among the popular forces responsible for the most intense of the antiJewish attacks in the Rhineland.
Interesting in its own right as yet another reflection of the anarchic diversity
that characterized the explosive First Crusade, the millenarian exhilaration serves
in addition to further our understanding of the radical assaults on Rhineland
Jewry. While the less radical anti-Jewish violence can be readily comprehended
against the backdrop of standard crusade thinking, the radical intention to "let
not a remnant or a residue escape" requires further explanation, and that explanationI am suggestinglies in the millenarian exhilaration that gripped segments of Rhineland society in 1096.
Christian thinking had long posited the notion that, with the arrival of the longawaited redemption, Jews would be rejoined into the True Israel. While there is
great ambiguity in Paul's view of Judaism and the Jews, the notion of an eventual
acceptance by the Jews of Christian truth is clearly present and significant in his
thinking. 47 This notion was embedded in the Augustinian synthesis that set the
45
Haverkamp, 22; Habermann, 29; Eidelberg, 28; Chazan, 250-51. Flori cites this source as well
as the following in L'islam et la fin des temps, pp. 263-64.
46
Ekkehard of Aura, Hierosolymita, p. 20.
47
For a detailed discussion of Paul and his stances toward Judaism and the Jews see John G. Gager,
Reinventing Paul (New York, 2000). Gager is especially useful in presenting the polarized positions
on this issue, with some scholars seeing Paul as the key villain in the emergence of Christian supersessionist thinking vis-a-vis Judaism and the Jews and others emphasizing Paul's positive views of
Judaism and the Jews. At the very beginning of his important Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the
Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley, Calif., 1999), pp. 6-9, Jeremy Cohen presents a pithy but
penetrating statement of the ambiguity in Pauline thinking. The critical passage in the Pauline corpus
for eventual Jewish acknowledgment of Christian truth and hence salvation is in the Epistle to the
Romans 9-11.
307
foundations for Jewish existence in the Christian world. Among the central justifications for the Jewish presence in Christian society was the conviction that Jews
would eventually recognize Christian truth and be reintegrated into a postredemption community of Christian believers.48
To be sure, the rich Christian apocalyptic tradition was also rife with violent
imagery, which portrayed Jews as enemies of the ultimate redemption in the same
way as they had been the enemies of the initial redemption heralded by Jesus. In
this tradition, there were gruesome images of the vengeance to be exacted upon
the Jews.49 It does not seem amiss to suggest that, among some of those exhilarated
by a sense of crusading as the dawning of a new era in human history, the combination of imagesJews converting on the one hand and utterly destroyed on
the othermay have worked to elicit the exterminatory state of mind projected
by the sources examined above. Again it must be emphasized that neither the
millenarian exhilaration nor the exterminatory conclusions were shared among
all crusaders. Those involved in the exterminatory behavior and moved by the
thinking I have identified were very much in the minority. This, however, is the
minority that was responsible for the exterminatory efforts in the Rhineland that
are the focus of attention here.
Identification of millenarian enthusiasm among some of those drawn to the First
Crusade raises the question of Jewish absorption of this frame of mind. Might the
Rhineland Jews of 1096, assaulted as a result of millenarian enthusiasm, have
been themselves influenced by this eschatological excitement?
Jewish behavior in the face of the variegated dangers of 1096 was highly diversified. The first line of response was regularly to seek safety in one way or
another. When safety was no longer available and the only options were conversion or death, the Jews of 1096 occasionally chose the former. Striking among
these Rhineland Jews, however, was the high level of willingness to give up life
rather than accept baptism. While some of the Jewish martyrs chose the traditional
posture of quiescent rejection of the call to abandon Judaism, others more actively
opted to take their own lives. Yet more radical was the murder of spouses and
children in order to save them from the perceived ignominy of baptism.50 These
patterns are depicted in considerable detail in the Hebrew narratives and are corroborated by Albert.
Recently, a number of students of the Jewish past have attempted to discern the
historical roots of the radical Jewish actions.51 Haym Soloveitchik has treated this
48
For the best available description of the Augustinian synthesis see Cohen, Living Letters of the
Law, pp. 23-65. Augustine's Tractatus adversus ludaeos is suffused with this sense of the eventual
salvation of the Jews through acknowledgment of Christian truth.
49
See, for example, Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination
with Evil ([San Francisco], 1994), which is rich in association of the Jews with the Antichrist figure
and the consequent punishments to be suffered by them.
50
For a review of these diverse behaviors see Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, pp.
85-114.
51
The history of Jewish martyrdom has been studied comprehensively by Shmuel Shepkaru,/<?M^s^
Martyrs in the Pagan and Christian Worlds (Cambridge, Eng., 2006). For the martyrdoms of 1096
see pp. 161-210 and the rich literature cited therein.
308
issue most closely and exhaustively. Soloveitchik examined various proposals for
identifying the antecedents of the extreme Jewish behavior of 1096 and rejected
them all. He further argues that the post-1096 justifications advanced by medieval
legalists are weak and argues that the radical behavior of 1096 represents a clear
break with prior Jewish legal norms. Soloveitchik views the choice of death in
1096 as a deflection of Jewish legal tradition and urges seeing in such deflection
extraneous influences; in his view something monumental must have occurred to
elicit such unusual Jewish responses.52
Given this sense of a sharp break with prior Jewish tradition and the suggested
intrusion of extraneous influences, we may well wonder at the relation between
the radical Christian behavior of 1096 and the extreme Jewish responses. Some
time ago, I suggested a Jewish countercrusade mentality that linked the two sets
of unusual behaviorthe Christian and the Jewish.53 Now I would like to refine
that suggestion a bit, advancing the notion that Rhineland Jews, threatened by
the millenarian extremism spawned in certain circles by the call to the crusade
and the appearance of impressive crusading bands, shared the sense of an epochal
event, in effect transforming the crusade into a decisive confrontation between
Christians and Jews.54 In the light of such a decisive confrontation, the prior norms
of Jewish law were abandoned in favor of radical rejection of the Christian alternative, a rejection thatit was feltwould have an enduring impact on the Jewish future.
In fact, the Hebrew narratives are replete with suggestions of an epochal juncture in world, indeed cosmic history. This sense is conveyed at numerous points
in the Hebrew First Crusade narratives. Let me note merely two illuminating reflections of the decisive nature of the confrontation of 1096 as seen in the oldest
of the narratives, the chronicle by the Mainz Anonymous. The first involves the
sense that the martyrs of 1096 reached a new level of Jewish heroism, beyond
that achieved at any previous time or place. Recurrently, they are compared with
the giant figures of Jewish history, with the suggestion that the Rhineland martyrs
in fact surpassed these great heroes of the past. A very striking instance of this
52
Haym Soloveitchik, "Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazi Example," AJS Review
12 (1987), 205-21, and, more recently and fully, "Halakhah, Hermeneutics, and Martyrdom in Medieval Ashkenaz," Jewish Quarterly Review 94 (2004), 77-108 and 278-99.
53
Chazan, FMropean Jewry and the First Crusade, pp. 132-36.
54
Again retail that, for the Christian millenarian enthusiasm, I suggested no numerical reckoning
but rather the sense of an extraordinary event that presaged the dawning of a new era. The same
would hold true for the Jews of 1096 as well. Interestingly, the later editor of the Solomon bar Simson
Chronicle does provide some numerical reckoning in his introduction, where he defines the year 4856,
the Jewish equivalent of 1096, as "the eleventh year of the two hundred and fifty-sixth cycle |each
calendrical cycle is composed of 19 years, thus two hundred fifty-five cycles constitute 4,845 years
plus the 11 years of the next cycle equaling 4,856], during which we had hoped for salvation and
comfort according to the prophecy of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Cry out in joy [r-n-u, corresponding to
the Hebrew number 256] for Jacob, shout at the crossroads of the nations!'" (The biblical citation is
from Jeremiah 31.6; the entire passage can be found in Haverkamp, 12; Habermann, 24; Eidelberg,
21; Chazan, 243.) This reckoning is so convoluted that it can only be an after-the-fact thought; no
Jews in 1096 would have anticipated salvation on such grounds. Inclusion of this convoluted reckoning
by the later editor suggests subsequent recollection of the earlier Jewish millenarian excitement, which
had been elicited by crusading millenarian exhilaration rather than by arcane numerology.
309
comes early in the account of the destruction of Mainz Jewry: "Ask and seewas
there ever so numerous a set of sacrifices (akedah) from the days of Adam?" 55
Introduction of the term akedah points to what is perceived in Jewish tradition as
one of the momentous acts of Jewish historyAbraham's near sacrifice of his son
Isaac. In the biblical narrative (Genesis 22.15-18), this near sacrifice is projected
as the source of divine blessing for Abraham and all of the generations to descend
from him. Subsequently, Jewish tradition placed the site of the two Jerusalem
temples at precisely the place where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac, and Jewish
liturgy and ritual regularly advanced this act as the basis for divine mercy upon
the Jewish people. Strikingly, some of the martyrs of 1096 are portrayed as reprising Abraham's act, with the difference, of course, that the 1096 heroes are
portrayed as carrying out the sacrifice of their sons and daughters. 56 In the passage
just now cited, the Jews of 1096 are presented as exceeding Abraham's greatness
many times over, sacrificing far more children than the one the patriarch was
prepared to offer up to the divine will. Projection of the 1096 Jews onto the
patriarchal plane, indeed beyond the patriarchal plane, suggests from the Jewish
side a sense of epochal events, of a turning point in Jewish history.
Early in the depiction of the destruction of the first segment of Worms Jewry,
the Mainz Anonymous introduces an even lengthier historical spectrum onto
which he projects the Rhineland Jews of 1096. In so doing, the Jewish author in
fact draws a sharp contrast between the depths of the Jewish past and what he
sees as the paltry scope of Christian history onto which the crusaders project
themselves. As noted earlier, in the face of the ruse involving a Christian cadaver
and the allegation of well poisoning, an ad hoc coalition of crusaders and burghers
assaulted the Jews, alleging that "the time has come to avenge him who was
crucified."57 I suggested Jewish reflection of a Christian sense of epochal circumstances, with the time having arrived for revenge against the Jews for their role in
the Crucifixion.
The Mainz Anonymous portrays the Christian intention to destroy the Jews in
their entirety and the execution of that intention. All elements of the Jewish community are depicted as accepting death willingly
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 seventyfour 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 [Deuteronomy 26.18]."58
The events in Worms are portrayed as a unique fulfillment of the demands of the
Torah, an unprecedented moment in the relationship of the Jewish people and
" Haverkamp, 28; Habermann, 100; Eidelberg, 109; Chazan, 236.
Note especially the striking story of Meshullam ben Isaac of Worms, who is portrayed as slaying
his son Isaac in direct imitation of the patriarch Abraham.
57
See above, n. 38.
58
Haverkamp, 92; Habermann, 95; Eidelberg, 102; Chazan, 228-29.
56
310
their God. According to the Mainz Anonymous, the Christian enemies saw their
actions as a special juncture in the thousand-year history of their faith; those
thousand years, for the Jewish author, pale into insignificance when contrasted
with the unique Jewish fulfillment of the demands of a Torah that predated the
creation of the universe by 974 generations. In the view of the Mainz Anonymous,
the Jewish sense of the historically unique parallels that of their Christian oppressors but exceeds it decisively. The Rhineland Jews of 1096 would seem to have
been aware of the millenarian mood of their attackers, to have absorbed elements
of that mood, and to have felt that they in fact were the ones truly fulfilling genuine
millenarian expectations. 59
T h e sourcesboth Jewish and Christianupon which my analysis thus far has
been based have all come from the Rhineland areas of Germany and suggest millenarian exhilaration among segments of the aggressive Christian majority and
the beleaguered Jewish minority. A curious source from Byzantium reinforces the
conclusions reached on the basis of the Rhineland materials. Back in 1897, the
indefatigable manuscript editor Adolf Neubauer published in the Jewish Quarterly
Review an unusual letter found in the Cairo Genizah. The letter, in poor condition
and in places difficult to decipher and understand, depicts millenarian excitement
in a number of Byzantine Jewish communities, seemingly generated by the arrival
of German crusaders moved by potent millenarian expectations.60
The letter focuses at the outset on the arrival of exhilarated German crusaders.
These German crusaders are described in the following terms:
In this very year, the word of our God has been fulfilled.61 The Germans came in infinite
numbers, thousands of thousandsthey along with their wives and all their moneys.
Our God gathered them together as in a threshing floor.62 Both Christians and Jews
asked them: "Why have you left your homes and places of residence and gone forth?"63
Their leaders responded: "The mountains of darkness are close to us. Now, however,
they have been illuminated in great light. We have seen a people with an infinite number
of tents, and we do not understand their language. One of them came forth and said to
us: 'Go forth on your way.' Thus we have come."64
59
The Jewish actions in 1096 are often projected as the norms for Jewish response to persecution,
with Jewish communities failing to achieve that standard denigrated as failures. The careful Soloveitchik studies noted above (n. 52) raise questions as to the normative status of the 1096 behavior. The
current analysis of the special circumstances that gave rise to exterminatory persecution and to radical
Jewish responses should reinforce the questions raised by Soloveitchik and help lead to reassessment
of subsequent Jewish responses to persecution.
60
Adolf Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments, II" Jewish Quarterly Review 9 (1897), 26-29. The letter
was reedited by Jacob Mann as the centerpiece of his "The Messianic Movements in the Days of the
First Crusades" [in Hebrew|, Ha-Tekufah 23 (1925), 243-61. Aaron Zeev Aescoly, Jewish Messianic
Movements [in Hebrew], ed. Yehuda Even-Shmuel, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem, 1987), pp. 176-80, absorbed
the Mann edition into his collection of sources on Jewish messianic movements. (I am much indebted
to Prof. Haym Soloveitchik for urging me to devote deeper consideration to this unusual source.)
61
For the explanation of this comment, see what follows shortly.
hl
A phrase from Micah, again to be clarified shortly.
63
Recall Ekkehard's indication of similar reactions in Germany to the arrival of the French crusaders,
above, p. 296.
64
Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments," p. 27; Mann, "The Messianic Movements," pp. 253-55; Aescoly,
Jewish Messianic Movements, pp. 176-77.
311
Reflected here is a Jewish sense of the German crusaders as moved by visions of

some kind of historic mission miraculously and divinely revealed to them, thus
buttressing the impression found in the Rhineland sourcesboth Jewish and
Christianof millenarian excitement in segments of the popular German crusading bands.
Equally striking is the Jewish reaction to this Christian millenarian exhilaration.
The author of the Hebrew letter introduces his report on the German crusaders
by citing verses from Micah 4.11-12:
. . . as in the word of our God:
"Indeed, many nations have assembled against you,
who think: 'Let our eyes gaze lasciviously on Zion.'
But they do not know the designs of the Lord;
they do not divine his intent.
He has gathered them like cut grain to the threshing floor."
However, the threshing floor has not yet been filled.6''
This is a remarkable Jewish perspective on crusading. God hasas it were
aroused the German crusaders to their mission in order ultimately to entice them
to their destruction, "like cut grain to the threshing floor."
After his description of the German crusaders, the Jewish author further explains:
We [the Jews] say: "Our God has surely fulfilled his word: '[Saying] to those who are in
darknessshow yourselves [Isaiah 49.9].' These are the other tribes.66 When all the
Germans reach the Land of Israel, the 'threshing floor will befilled.'Then our God will
say:
'Up and thresh, fair Zion!
For I will give you horns of iron
and provide you with horns of bronze,
and you will crush the many peoples [Micah 4.13].'" 67
Then all the [Jewish] communities were moved and returned to the Lord.68
From this curious letter we can see that the millenarian excitement of the German crusaders sparked a parallel enthusiasm among the Byzantine Jews, just as I
have suggested earlier occurred in the Rhineland areas. In the latter case, Jews
violently assaulted responded with extreme behavior, killing themselves and their
families, reflecting their sense of an ultimate confrontation between Christians and
Jews. In the former case, there do not seem to have been exterminatory attacks;
rather, the Byzantine Jews saw an eschatological drama unfolding, with God en65
Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments," p. 27; Mann, "The Messianic Movements," p. 25.5; Aescoly,
]ewish Messianic Movements, p. 176. The reference to the unfilled threshing floor will be clarified
shortly.
66
This is the Jewish explication of the imagery of the infinite multitude with a strange language
presented by the German crusaders. The vision they sawaccording to the Jewish observerinvolved
the lost tribes of Israel.
67
God's intention in arousing the German crusaders to their mission wasaccording to this Jewish
observerto entice them to the Holy Land, where the forces of the True Israel, that is, the Jews, would
then destroy them entirely.
68
Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments," p. 27; Mann, "The Messianic Movements," p. 255; Aescoly,
Jewish Messianic Movements, p. 177.
312
ticing the crusaders to the Holy Land, where Jewish warriors would fulfill biblical
prophecy by destroying them completely. In effect, in the Byzantine sphere the
millenarianism of the German crusaders triggered parallel (and similarly aggressive) millenarian exhilaration among the Jews, which is then the subject of the
rest of this unusual missive.
The identification of millenarian enthusiasm as the grounding for the exterminatory assaults on Rhineland Jewry in 1096 paves the way for fuller understanding
of the striking difference between the events of 1096 and the fate of Europe's Jews
during the subsequent crusades, beginning with the second.
The Jewish chronicler of the Jewish-related events of the Second Crusade
Ephraim of Bonnhas left us a useful memoir of those events.69 A youngster of
thirteen at the time, Ephraim later turned his pen to a valuable narrative of the
events of the 1140s. He begins by highlighting the importance of Bernard of Clairvaux, whose resolute rejection of anti-Jewish violence playedaccording to
Ephraima major role in sparing the Jews repetition of the 1096 massacres. He
also notes the importance of preparedness on the part of the Jews and their protectors. Utilizing the lessons of 1096, the Jews sought the aid of the political
authorities in finding refuge in rural fortresses, the tactic that had worked well for
the Jews of Speyer and badly for the Jews of Cologne during the First Crusade.
Ephraim asserts that this strategy, along with the stance adopted by Bernard of
Clairvaux, precluded reenactment of the First Crusade tragedy. While he adduces
a string of attacks on Jews, in fact all the incidents he portrays fall into the category
of incidental violence occasioned by the broad anti-Jewish implications of the
crusading message.
Utterly absent from Ephraim's narrative are the exterminatory assaults identified above as so devastating in 1096. Without rejecting Ephraim's suggestion of
the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux and the impact of Jewish and non-Jewish
preparedness for violence, I might suggest that equallyif not moreimportant
was the lack of the millenarian enthusiasm that in fact sparked the most destructive of the 1096 assaults. In effect, like the bishop of Speyer in 1096, those ranged
in opposition to anti-Jewish violence during the Second Crusade were confronted
with a far lesser danger than that faced by the bishop of Worms, the archbishop
of Mainz, and the archbishop of Cologne.
Late-eleventh-century Western Christendom manifested a newfound sense of
power along with innovative thinking and ideals. Out of that mix emerged the
First Crusade, an exceedingly complex movement of arms and ideas. In the immediate wake of the remarkably successful expedition and ever after, attention
has understandably focused on the achievements of the Christian armies and the
new crusading practices and aspirations introduced into Christian tradition. The
First Crusade, however, was a richly sprawling enterprise, whose component elements far exceeded the military successes it achieved and the new practices and
69
Neubauer and Stern, Hebraische Berichte (above, n. 6), pp. 58-66; Habermann, 115-23; Eidelberg, 121-3?.
313
ideals it introduced. Lesser strands emerged, and they as well are worthy of understanding, since they, too, were destined to constitute a legacy for the future.
The testimony of the Hebrew narratives, the German-based Christian chronicles, and the curious Hebrew letter from Byzantium enable us to follow two of
those lesser strands of the First Crusade. The firstreflected in the Rhineland
sourcesinvolved the extension of anti-outsider animus from the focused enemy
of the crusading venture, that is, the Muslims, to other outsider groups as well.
The malleability of the crusading ideal of going to battle against the Muslim enemy
first manifested itself against the major identifiable outsider group in late-eleventhcentury Western Christendomthe Jews. Subsequently, this malleability was to
reemerge with the deflection of later crusades in numerous directionsagainst
the pagans of northern Europe, against Byzantium, and ultimately against those
perceived as internal enemies within the Christian fold itself. For the Jews, the
initial victims of this malleability of enmity, the notion of them as a historic enemy
was subsequently to take yet more threatening turns, as Western Christendom
continued to deepen its sense of cohesion, thus heightening the sense of the Jews
as outsiders andwith the growing perception of Jewish neighbors as here-andnow enemiesas ever poised to inflict harm on Christianity and unsuspecting
Christians.70
A second lesser strand in First Crusade thinking, which was similarly destined
for a long and destructive life, was the millenarian exhilaration aroused in certain
crusading circles. I have suggested that such millenarian excitement lay at the core
of the exterminatory assaults on a few Rhineland Jewish communities. The perception that an epochal transformation was under way served, on the one hand,
to remove normal societal and doctrinal restraints. At the same time, the sense of
a new historical era fostered the drive to realize dreams and fantasies long harbored for a distant future. The subsequent and destructive history of such millenarian outbursts deserves further and deeper consideration.71
70
For further on this later development see Robert Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism (Berkeley, Calif., 1997).
71
This means in effect pursuing some of the lines adumbrated by Cohn, Pursuit of the Millennium.
Robert Chazan is S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at
New York University, New York, NY 10012 (e-mail: rc2@nyu.edu).

Speculum Volume 84 Issue 02 2009 (Doi 10.1017/S0038713400018054) Chazan, Robert - "Let Not A Remnant or A Residue Escape" - Millenarian Enthusiasm in The First Crusade

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"Let Not a Remnant or a Residue Escape":

Millenarian Enthusiasm in the First Crusade

incorporates a number of previously composed narratives, we are in fact provided

' Haverkamp, 88; Habermann, 93; Eidelberg, 99; Chazan, 225.

(12) a few Jews are led out and are killed;

See above, n. 13.

fully in the description by the Mainz Anonymous of events in Mainz. Count

Albert of Aachen, Historia Hierosolymitana, pp. 5 0 - 5 1 .

violence focused on the last modality of anti-Jewish action, which involved a

ideals surely helps us to understand much of the anti-Jewish action portrayed in

world, in other words, a historic, indeed millenarian undertaking. Again, this is

Reflected here is a Jewish sense of the German crusaders as moved by visions of

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