CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST CRUSADE
The position of the Jews in Germany previous to the Crusades – The community of Speyer and Henry IV – The Martyrs of Treves and Speyer – Emmerich of Leiningen and the Martyrs of Mayence – Cruel persecutions at Cologne – Suffering of the Jews in Bohemia – Pitiful death of the Jews of Jerusalem – Emperor Henry's justice towards the Jews – Return of Converts to Judaism – Death of Alfassi and Rashi.
1096–1105 C. E
Towards the end of the eleventh century there arose the first contest between Christianity and Islam on other ground than that of Spain. This contest turned the history of the world into new paths, and inserted in the history of the Jews pages dripping with blood. Peter of Amiens' lament about the ill-treatment of pilgrims in Jerusalem, which found a thousandfold echo at the Church congress in Clermont, had aroused piety, chivalry, ambition, and a number of other noble and ignoble passions, expressing themselves in a crusade. A terrible time ensued; but the greatest suffering fell on the German Jews, who had to seal their confession of faith with blood. Before the crusades, the Jews of Germany had dwelt in peace; they were not excluded from the possession of land, nor were they despised and humiliated. When Bishop Rüdiger Huozmann, of Speyer, extended the limits of the town by including the village Old Speyer, he knew no better way of improving the new portion than by allowing the Jews to have privileges and dwellings therein. He allowed the Jews to live under their own laws, and their secular head or their rabbin (Archisynagogus), like the burgomasters, decided lawsuits. The Jews could buy slaves, and hire male and female servants from Christians, in opposition to the canonical laws and against the will of Pope Gregory VII. In order to protect them from the mob, Rüdiger gave them a special quarter surrounded by a wall, which they might fortify and defend. These privileges, for which they annually paid 3½ lbs. of gold, were guaranteed to them for all time. Rüdiger adds in the charter that he was granting to the Jews the same favorable conditions that they enjoyed in other German towns. Emperor Henry IV confirmed these privileges, and added other more favorable clauses. This emperor, who, in spite of his thoughtlessness and fickleness, was never unjust, issued a decree (6th February, 1095) in favor of the Jews. No one was permitted to compel either the Jews or their slaves to be baptized. In a lawsuit between Jews and Christians, the process was to be conducted and the oaths administered according to Jewish law, and Jews could not be compelled to undergo ordeals by fire and water. Yet, not long after this, they were mocked at by the holy combatants in the sacred war. The German Jews and those of northern France were just then full of the hope of the coming of the Messiah. A mystic had calculated that the son of David would appear towards the end of the 250th cycle of the moon, between the years 1096 and 1104, and would lead back the sons of Judah to the Holy Land. But instead of the trumpet-blast of the Messianic redemption they heard only the wild cries of the crusaders: "The Jews have crucified our Saviour, therefore they must acknowledge him or die."
The first armies of the crusaders, one led by the pious Peter of Amiens and his eight knights, the other by Gottschalk, did no special harm to the Jews; they plundered Christians and Jews alike. But the hordes that followed, the scum of the French, English, and Flemish, in the absence of Mahometans, began the holy work of plundering and murdering with the Jews. It was a shameless mob of men and women, who indulged in every sort of excess. But these blasphemous crusaders were sanctified warriors; their sins, past and future, had been absolved. A monk threw out the inflammatory suggestion that the Jews should be brought to Christianity by force, an inscription, found on the grave of Jesus, having made their conversion the duty of all believers. This plan seemed to the wild crusaders alike profitable, easy to fulfil, and pleasing to God. They reasoned that the Jews were infidels like the Saracens, both deadly enemies of Christianity, and that the crusade could begin on the spot, if the beginning were made with the Jews. When the troops assembled in France and Germany, they were marked by the cross on their garments and by the blood of the Jews. The massacres in France, however, were few in number, although the first gathering of crusaders occurred there. In Germany security reigned at that time, and the Jews of the Rhine district had no suspicion of the sad fate which was about to befall them. However, at the bidding of the head of their congregation, they assembled to pray for their imperiled brethren in France. But these fortunately escaped with but little damage, because the princes and priests energetically took the part of the Jews. Only in Rouen, which belonged to England, the crusaders drove the Jews into a church, and, placing their swords at their breasts, gave them the choice between death and baptism. The persecutions first received a tragic character on German ground.
The hordes which moved through France and Flanders into German territory were led by a French knight, named William the Carpenter, who had begun by plundering his peasants in order to fit out his soldiers. The spirit animating William's troops is shown by one instance. They placed a goose and a herd of goats in the van, firmly believing that they would show them the way to Jerusalem. To such the Jewish communities of the Moselle and the Rhine were given over. The emperor Henry was at that time occupied in war with Italy, and the wildest anarchy prevailed in Germany. At the first news of the approach of William, the congregation of Treves was seized with such terror that some of its members killed their own children. Women and girls loaded themselves with stones, and threw themselves into the Moselle in order to escape baptism or disgrace at the hands of the holy murderers. The rest of the community entreated the bishop, Egilbert, for his protection. But this hard-hearted prince of the Church, who perhaps sought to cancel by zeal the imputation of heresy resting upon him, replied: "If you apostatize, I will give you peace and the enjoyment of your property. If you remain hardened, your soul and body shall be destroyed together." The Jews thereupon assembled in council, and determined, on the advice of Micah, one of the learned members of the congregation, to conform outwardly to Christianity. He said to the bishop: "Tell us quickly what to believe, and deliver us from the men that watch at the gate, ready to kill us." The priest recited the Catholic confession of faith, which the Jews repeated, and then baptized them. It was a disgraceful victory which Christianity celebrated over the congregation of Treves, but it did not last long. Thereupon the crusaders went to Speyer, where the congregation had lately had documentary promises of liberty and security. Here some Jews were dragged to the church, and commanded to undergo baptism. They resolutely refused, and were murdered (8th Iyar – 3d May, 1096). The remaining Jews fled to the palace of the bishop Johannsen and to the emperor's castle. The bishop, more humane and pious than Egilbert, would not countenance such baptism by main force, and opposed the furious mob. The Jews also defended themselves vigorously, and no more of them fell victims to fanaticism. Johannsen caused some of the crusaders to be executed, an act strongly reproved by the monkish chroniclers. They asserted that he was bribed by the Jews. It is not to be wondered at that the Jews shuddered at baptism, and held themselves disgraced if they were borne off unconscious to the font. The Christianity of the eleventh century they could regard only as a terrible form of paganism. The worship of relics and pictures; the conduct of the head of the Church, who absolved nations from a sacred oath, and incited them to regicide; the immoral, dissipated life of the priesthood; the horrible practices of the crusaders – all these things reminded them much more of the practices of idolaters than of the followers of a holy God. As in the days of the Maccabees their ancestors had revolted against the enforced worship of Zeus and its attendant practices, so the German Jews felt towards the Christianity of the times.
The mob which undertook the attack on the congregation of Speyer does not appear to have been very powerful, and could therefore be repulsed. It now awaited re-inforcements, and two weeks later a large body of crusaders – "wolves of the forest," as the Jewish chronicler calls them – entered Worms. The Bishop Allebrandus could not, or would not, give the Jews sufficient protection. It seems, however, that he disapproved of the massacre of the Jews, for he sheltered a part of the community, probably its richest and most respected members, in the palace. The others, left to themselves, at first attempted to resist, but, overcome by numbers, they fell under the blows of their murderers, crying, "The Lord our God is one." Only a few submitted to baptism, but the greater number committed suicide. Women killed their tender babes. The fanatics destroyed the houses of the Jews, plundered their goods, and burnt the Scriptures found in the synagogues and houses (on Sunday, 23d Iyar – 18th May). Seven days later those that had found protection in the bishop's palace were also attacked. The fanatics either made a raid on the palace, and demanded the surrender of their victims, or Allebrandus himself had offered to the Jews an asylum only in order to convert them through kindness. At any rate, the bishop informed the Jews that he would not shelter them any longer, unless they consented to be baptized. The chief amongst them begged for a short interval for consideration. The fanatics remained outside the palace, ready to lead the Jews to the font or to death. After the appointed time the bishop caused the door to be opened, and found the Jews in their own blood; they had preferred death at the hands of their brethren. On hearing this, the furious mob fell on the survivors, and murdered them, dragging the corpses through the streets. Only a few saved themselves by ostensible conversion to Christianity (Sunday, 1st Sivan – 25th May). A youth, Simcha Cohen, whose father and seven brothers had been murdered, desired to avenge himself. He was taken to the church, and when about to receive the sacrament he drew forth a knife, and stabbed the nephew of the bishop. As he had expected, he was murdered in the church. It was only when the crusaders had left the town that the Jewish martyrs, who numbered nearly 800, were buried by Jewish hands. The congregation, which was formed later on, cherished their memory as of martyrs, or saints (Kedoshim), to be venerated and held up as patterns of steadfast faith.
The day after the massacre of the remnant in Worms, the crusaders arrived in Mayence. Here their leader was a Count Emmerich, or Emicho, of Leiningen, a close relation of Archbishop Ruthard, an unprincipled, bloodthirsty man. He desired the riches of the Jews of Mayence as much as their blood, and together with the archbishop, an opponent of Henry IV, devised a fiendish plan of extermination. The archbishop invited all the Jews to take shelter in his palace, until the danger had passed. Over 1300 Jews took refuge in the cellars of the building, with anxious hearts and prayers on their lips. But at break of day (Tuesday, Sivan 3d – 27th May), Emmerich of Leiningen led the crusaders to the bishop's palace, and demanded the surrender of the Jews. The archbishop had indeed appointed a guard, but the soldiers refused to bear arms against the fanatical pilgrims, who easily penetrated into the palace, and the terrible scene of Worms was repeated. Men, young and old, women and children, fell by the sword of their brethren or their foes. The corpses of thirteen hundred martyrs were eventually conveyed from the palace. The treasures of the Jews were divided between the archbishop and Emmerich. Ruthard had kept sixty Jews hidden in the church, and they were conveyed to the Rhine district; but on the way they also were seized and murdered. Only a few were baptized; two men and two girls – Uriah and Isaac, with his two daughters – were induced by fear to accept baptism, but their repentance drove them to a terrible act of heroism. Isaac killed his two daughters on the eve of Pentecost, in his own house, and then set fire to the dwelling; then he and his friend Uriah went to the synagogue, set fire to it, and died in the flames. A great part of Mayence was destroyed by this fire.
Meanwhile, crusaders, under Hermann the Carpenter, assembled at Cologne on the eve of Pentecost. The members of this oldest congregation of Germany prepared for the worst; but they entreated the protection of the citizens and the bishop. Touched with pity for their Jewish fellow-citizens, humane burghers of Cologne received the Jews into their houses. When the furious mob, at break of day on Pentecost (Friday, May 30th), entered the houses of the Jews, they found them empty, and had to spend their fury on stones and wood. They destroyed the dwellings, pillaging the contents and crushing the scrolls of the Law on the very day when the giving of the Law was celebrated. An earthquake which occurred on the day incited the madmen to fresh fury; they considered it as a sign of heaven's approval. One man and his wife fell victims to their rage on this day. The pious man, Mar-Isaac, willingly accepted a martyr's death. He did not desire to escape, and remained in his house, engaged in prayer. He was dragged to the church, and spitting on the crucifix that was held up before him, was killed. The rest of the Jews of Cologne remained unhurt in the houses of the citizens and in the bishop's palace. The noble bishop, Hermann III, whose name deserves to be immortalized, assisted the Jews to depart secretly from the city, and to be safely housed in seven neighboring towns and villages belonging to his diocese. Here they passed three weeks in anxiety, praying and fasting day after day, and when they heard that the pilgrims had come to Neus, one of their cities of refuge, for the feast of St. John (1st Tamuz, 24th June), they fasted on two days in succession. The pilgrims had prepared themselves for renewed massacres by a mass on the day of St. John, and killed all the Jews who had taken refuge in Neus, according to one authority, not indeed very reliable, two hundred in number. One Samuel ben Asher, who had exhorted his brethren to remain firm, and his two sons, were brutally murdered, and their bodies hung to the door of their house.
The pilgrims had at last discovered the refuge of the Jews of Cologne, and now hunted them out of their hiding-places. Many ended their lives in the lakes and bogs, following the example of Samuel ben Yechiel, a learned and pious man. Standing in the water, and pronouncing a blessing, he killed his son, a handsome and strong youth, and as the victim said "Amen," all those looking on intoned their "Hear, O Israel," and threw themselves into the water.
The pilgrims continued their work of destruction, and in two months (May-July) twelve thousand Jews are said to have been killed in the Rhenish towns. The rest outwardly accepted Christianity, in the expectation that the just emperor, on his return from Italy, would listen to their complaints. Wherever the savage pilgrims met with Jews the tragic scenes were repeated. The large community of the town of Ratisbon suffered greatly. In connection with the crusades the Jews of Bohemia enter into history; until then they had not felt the pressure of the yoke, Christianity not having as yet attained to power in Slavonic countries. Many amongst them were wealthy, and occupied themselves in the slave-trade, chiefly dealing in Slavs, who were exported to the west of Europe and to Spain. In this way the Jews came into conflict with the priesthood, and Bishop Adalbert of Prague strove against this practice, and collected large sums of money in order to buy the slaves from the Jews. Then the crusades commenced, and transplanted into Bohemian soil the poisonous seed of fanaticism. When the crusaders traversed Bohemia, its powerful duke, Wratislaw II, was occupied in a foreign war, and could do nothing to stem the evil. The miscreant crusaders were, therefore, at liberty to gratify their fanaticism, and drag off the Jews of Prague to baptism or death. Bishop Cosmas preached in vain against such excesses; the crusaders understood Christianity better than the prince of the Church.
Fortunately for the Jews of western Europe, and especially of Germany, those filled with this bloodthirsty fanaticism were the mere scum of the people. The princes and citizens were horrified at such deeds of crime, and the higher priesthood, with the exception of Archbishops Ruthard of Mayence and Egilbert of Treves, were on the side of the Jews. The time had not yet arrived when the three powers – the nobility, priesthood, and people – were united in their hatred and persecution of the Jews. When the news came that 200,000 crusaders, under Emmerich and Hermann, had met with a disgraceful end – most of them having been killed in Hungary, whilst a miserable remnant only had returned to Germany – both Jews and Christians felt it to be a judgment of God. Meanwhile Emperor Henry IV had returned from Italy, and at the news of the atrocities perpetrated against the Jews by the crusaders, he gave public expression to his horror, and at the request of the head of the congregation of Speyer, Moses ben Guthiel, he permitted those that had been forcibly baptized to return to Judaism. This was a gleam of joy for the Jews of Germany. The converts did not fail to make use of their liberty to throw off the mask of Christianity (1097). The representatives of the Church, however, were by no means pleased at this proceeding. Even Pope Clement III, who was upheld by the emperor, declaimed against his humanity, which was contrary to the teachings of the Church. "We have heard," he wrote to Henry IV, "that the baptized Jews have been permitted to leave the Church. This is unexampled and sinful; and we demand of all our brethren that they take care that the sacrament of the Church be not desecrated by the Jews." The emperor cared but little about the unholy zeal of the priesthood. Far from forbidding the Jews to return to their religion, he even permitted proceedings to be instituted against the kinsmen of Archbishop Ruthard, of Mayence, on account of the theft of the property of the Jewish congregation. The Jews of Mayence in a petition had informed the emperor that Emmerich of Leiningen and his kinsmen, together with the archbishop, had appropriated the treasures deposited by the Jews in the archbishop's palace. None of the accused appeared in answer to this citation to defend himself. Ruthard, whose conscience was not clear, feared the disgrace of exposure, and, as he was in disfavor with the emperor, he fled to Erfurt. Thereupon the emperor confiscated the revenues of the archbishopric (1098). Ruthard revenged himself by joining the enemies of the emperor, who plotted to humiliate him.
The Jews of Bohemia were very unfortunate in this year. Hearing that the emperor had permitted return to Judaism, they abandoned their pretended faith, but feared to remain in a country where they could not obtain justice. They gathered together their property and possessions in order to send them on to a place of safety, and determined to emigrate to Poland or to Pannonia (Austria and Hungary). Wratislaw, the ruler of Bohemia, now returned from his campaign, and heard that the Jews intended sending their riches out of the country. Thereupon he placed them under military surveillance. The elders were called together, and the duke's treasurer announced to them in his lord's name that everything they possessed belonged to him, and that they were endeavoring to rob him: "Ye brought none of Jerusalem's treasures to Bohemia. Conquered by Vespasian, and sold for a mere nothing, ye have been scattered over the globe. Naked ye have entered the land, and naked ye can depart. For your secession from the Church, Bishop Cosmas may judge you." There was nothing to be said against this logic; it was the argument of brutality. The Bohemian Jews were plundered, only enough being left to them to stay for the moment the cravings of hunger. With malicious pleasure a contemporary chronicler relates that the Jews were despoiled of more gold than the Greeks had taken from Troy. Still more dreadful was the fate of the Jews of Jerusalem. When the crusading army, under Godfrey of Bouillon, after many attempts had taken the city by storm, and massacred the Mahometans, they drove the Jews, Rabbanites and Karaites, into a synagogue, set fire to it, and burnt all within its walls (July 15, 1099).
Emperor Henry, however, seriously desired to protect the Jews of his empire. Having heard of the horrible scenes of murder in Mayence which had occurred during his absence, he caused his princes and citizens to swear an oath that they would keep the peace with the Jews, and that they would not ill-treat them (1103). The protection thus granted by the emperor to the Jews was of temporary benefit to them, but brought evil results after awhile. They thus became dependent upon the ruler of the land, almost his slaves.
This circumstance was not the only evil result of the first crusade for the German Jews. On the one hand Pope Clement III claimed the converts who had joined the Church to save themselves from death, forgetting that their whole being turned against the Church, and that they regarded their enforced Christianity with contempt and hate. On the other hand, those that had remained Jews kept aloof from the renegades, and would not intermarry nor associate with them, although they had shown their attachment to Judaism by a prompt return to it. These unhappy people were thus regarded as renegades by both sides. When, however, Rashi heard of this narrowness, his true piety protested against it. "Far be it from us," he said, "to reject those that have returned. They acted through fear of the sword, and lost no time in returning to Judaism."
Other results of the first crusade were still worse. The German Jews, already inclined to extravagant piety, became yet more bigoted in consequence of their unexampled sufferings. All merriment died out amongst them, and they clothed themselves only in sackcloth and ashes. Though they hated the Catholic Church, they adopted its custom of visiting the graves of martyrs, whom they also called saints (Kedoshim), offered up prayers for the dead, and entreated their intercession with heaven. The Judaism of Germany from that time on assumed a gloomy aspect. The so-called poets, in their penitential prayers and lamentations, rang the changes on only one theme, the fearful troubles and the desolation of Israel. The study of the Talmud formed a counterpoise to the growing tendency of the German Jews to give a penitential character to their religion. This study, as pursued by Rashi, was a protection against unthinking, brooding monasticism. He who desired to find his way through the intricate mazes of the Talmud had to keep his eyes open to facts, and could not permit his mind to grow rusty. The study of the Talmud became balm for the wounds inflicted by the crusading mob on the communities of the Rhine district. The pleasure resulting from creative thought ruled in the schools, and subdued sorrow and despair; and the House of Learning became the refuge of the unfortunate oppressed. The two men who gave the great impulse to Talmudical studies died at the commencement of the twelfth century. They were Isaac Alfassi (died 1103), and Rashi, who died two years later (1105, 29th Tamuz – 13th July). Both left a large number of disciples, who spread the study of the Talmud, and both were highly honored by their contemporaries and by posterity. The admiration of the Spaniards for Alfassi was expressed, as befitted their high culture, in verses, whilst the German Jews and those of northern France, who occupied a lower stage of culture, commemorated Rashi by extravagant legends. Two young poets, Moses Ibn-Ezra and Jehuda Halevi, composed touching elegies on the death of Alfassi.