Disorderly conduct and confused leadership were not the sole prerogatives of these early crusade armies; a year later the princes fared little better during some of the darker days at the siege of Antioch. The populist nature of the whole enterprise now emerged, not for the last time, as a potent force in tactical decisions. Walter Sans Avoir and most of the other leaders at Kibotos argued against any precipitate response to the Xerigordo disaster, but popular demand for revenge found a spokesman in Godfrey Burel, the majority prevailing over the cautious leadership. The popular agitation provoked the main body of the crusaders to advance from Kibotos towards Nicaea. By now the Seljuk Sultan Kilij Arslan was sufficiently alarmed to take personal direction of his forces. In a series of fast-moving engagements on 21 October, a significant proportion of the Christian knights were isolated and killed, including Walter Sans Avoir, pierced, so Albert of Aachen recorded, by seven arrows, and Reynald of Broyes.10 With the elite of knights broken, the Christians were either massacred or fled, the Turks overrunning the camp at Kibotos three miles away within minutes. Only the arrival of a Byzantine relief force saved the remnants of the Christian army that had found refuge in a deserted castle on the shore; a large proportion of these would appear to have been knights.
Although not directly responsible for the catastrophe, Peter the Hermit’s role as a leader was at an end, his presence during the rest of the campaign receiving distinctly muted acknowledgement in the eyewitness accounts. Yet his contribution, ultimately insignificant militarily, demonstrated that the journey to the east was not a fool’s errand. His troops had held together as a viable force for months despite their difficulties with supplies, which were the result of timing as much as anything. He had accomplished a long march with thousands of ill-assorted followers, negotiated with local rulers and secured the patronage and favour of the Greek emperor. The tragic failure of his army in Asia pointed to the requirements for success: united leadership; significant numbers of knights; respect for the enemy; and, above all, adequate and secure supplies, of food, water, war materials and horses.
Peter the Hermit’s failure looked like modest success when compared with the fate of the other large crusader bands that set out from the Rhineland area in the spring of 1096. Gottschalk’s army was destroyed at the beginning of July by an exasperated King Coloman in western Hungary at about the same time as Volkmar’s force was dispersed at Nitra in the north after a career of Jewish persecution in Bohemia. The problem for the Hungarians was of order and supply. Each successive crusader army seemed less disciplined, more eager to plunder, commandeer markets and coerce locals. Beyond the scrutiny of chroniclers, a steady stream of ordinary pilgrims was flowing east, adding to the pressure on food stocks and forage. These material considerations dictated Coloman’s refusal in late July to allow the passage into his kingdom of Emich of Flonheim and his south and west German followers: with a more favourable supply position three months later, the king allowed Godfrey of Bouillon a negotiated passage. However, beyond provisions, Coloman may also have regarded Emich as a dangerous liability, his reputation for violence and flouting of royal authority preceding him. In the three months since embarking on his crusade, Count Emich had, in the eyes of many, indelibly stained the holy project by the systematic persecution of Jews.
THE JEWISH POGROM OF 1096
The Jews of northern Europe shared in the economic growth of the eleventh century, especially in the revival of urban life. Attracted from the Mediterranean regions, Ashkenazic Jews became established in market towns of northern France such as Troyes or Le Mans by the late tenth century, as well as in the towns of the Rhineland. New communities continued to be established, such as in England after 1066 or in Speyer in 1084; older ones, such as those of Rouen, Cologne or Mainz, flourished under the protection of local rulers or bishops eager to promote trade. Jewish banking became a feature of the expanding markets of the area. As well as direct involvement in trading goods, with increased long-distance commerce and the persistence of varying local currencies, weights and measures, the network of Jewish financiers proved useful. Judging by Rhineland evidence, interest rates were not exorbitant, 8 per cent in one example, Jewish credit being certainly more accessible and in the long term cheaper than obtaining cash from another source of bullion, religious houses.11 With success came dangers. In northern France there had been sporadic outbreaks of anti-Semitic persecution allied to forced conversions, in particular in the years 1007–12.12 As holders of movable wealth, Jews were targets for casual as well as systematic larceny. As a religious minority, Jews remained tolerated if not accepted. A more consistent threat to their communities than persecution lay in conversions of successful and ambitious Jews to the majority faith, as occurred with sons of two famous Mainz rabbis. Privileged and protected status in the confined streets of eleventh-century towns presented its own problems: Bishop Rudiger’s charter establishing Jews at Speyer provided for a walled enclave to protect them from ‘the violence of the mob’.13 Such communal tensions played their part in the tragedy of 1096.
On 3 May 1096, the Jewish Sabbath, Count Emich’s troops attacked the Jews at Speyer, near to his estates, killing a dozen of them who refused baptism, before the bishop came to their rescue. One woman committed suicide rather than submit to the Christians. The persecutors received the help of townspeople, as Bishop John punished some of them by having their hands cut off, a penalty for theft. Those Jews who had fled to the surrounding countryside or had accepted baptism returned under the bishop’s protection, the apostates allowed to revert to Judaism; a new synagogue was begun. Steven Runciman rather astonishingly dismisses this episode as ‘not a very impressive attack’.14 Perhaps the walls prescribed in 1084 proved their use. Over a fortnight later, on 18 May, Emich arrived at Worms where he managed to mobilize more effective local assistance, including peasants from the countryside as well as burghers. Given the proximity of Emich’s own lands, the count was probably exploiting known local tensions. Jews found in their quarter were massacred, the Torah Scrolls desecrated; those who had fled to the protection of the bishop’s palace were besieged and, on 20 May, slaughtered. Some resisted forcible conversion, one of the bishop’s relatives being killed; others may have taken the route of suicide. Hundreds died.
The destruction of the Jews of Mainz attracted the most detailed attention, later held up to Jewish audiences as a model of fortitude under persecution and of holy martyrdom. Mainz was a major centre of Jewish learning and culture as well as business. Jewish leaders were prominent in commerce; the chief rabbi, Kalonymos, on good terms with the archbishop and recognized by the emperor. On Emich’s appearance before their gates, which the archbishop had ordered to be shut against him, some townspeople provoked riots. The Jewish leaders bribed the archbishop to protect them and tried to buy off Emich with a gift of seven pounds of gold, to no avail. The gates were opened on 26 May; the killing and looting lasted two days. The archbishop reneged on his promise of protection and fled; the Jews sheltering in his palace, despite initial vigorous armed resistance, were slaughtered with the rest. The search for money and Jews throughout the city was thorough. The synagogue was destroyed in the mayhem; some Jews apostatized; others chose suicide. The story of the young mother Rachel’s sacrifice of her four children, circulated for the edification of the faithful in the twelfth century, is grim. Her youngest, Aaron, terrified at seeing the deaths of his siblings, begged his mother to spare him, running away to hide under a box.
When this pious woman had completed sacrificing her three children to their Creator, she raised her voice and called to her son: ‘Aaron, Aaron, where are you? I will not spare you either, or have mercy on you.’ She drew him out by his feet from under the box where he had hidden and slaughtered him before the Exalted and Lofty God.15
Surrounded by the still-twitching corpses of her children, Rachel waited to be found by the Christians; before killing her, they demanded, ‘Show us the money you have in your sleeves’. Hers was not the only horrific death. Rabbi Kalonymos and fifty others escaped to seek asylum at the archbishop’s country retreat across the Rhine at Rudesheim. Archbishop Ruthard, pusillanimous and discreditable to the last, tried to exploit the rabbi’s predicament by offering protection only in return for conversion. Kalonymos, so furious at this self-seeking betrayal that he tried to assault the archbishop, was butchered with his companions. The amount of loot gained by Emich’s men and the local Christians is unknown; perhaps about a thousand Jews died.
By the time Emich reached Cologne on 29 May, lessons had been learnt, local Jews having dispersed across the countryside or sought shelter from friendly Christians in the city, hoping to avoid trouble during the following weekend and Whit Sunday (1 June). The synagogue was burnt and the Torah Scrolls desecrated, but casualties among the Jews were light, the quest for booty more obvious: a wealthy Jewish woman, Rebecca, was murdered when found trying to smuggle gold and silver to her husband in hiding with a Christian family.16 The Jews who had fled the city were soon being hunted down, attacks being recorded in Neuss, Wevelinghofen and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. With the best plums picked, Count Emich and his men turned south and east,
