PEOPLES CRUSADE, Northern France>Balkans>Turkey (apr 2, 1096 – oct 21, 1096)
Description:
it was not part of the official Catholic Church-organised expeditions that came later. Led primarily by Peter the Hermit with forces of Walter Sans Avoir, the army was destroyed by the Seljuk forces of Kilij Arslan at Civetot, northwestern Anatolia.
Historically, there has been much debate over whether Peter was the real initiator of the Crusade as opposed to Pope Urban II. The expedition's independence has been used by some historians such as Hagenmeyer to prove this.
It is often believed that Peter's army was a band of illiterate, incompetent peasants who had no idea where they were going, and who believed that every city of any size they encountered on their way was Jerusalem itself; this may have been true for some, but the long tradition for pilgrimages to Jerusalem ensured that the location and distance of the city were well known. While the majority were unskilled in fighting, there were some well-trained minor knights leading them, such as Walter Sans-Avoir (also mistakenly known as Walter the Penniless[7]), who was experienced in warfare. A list of known members of Peter's army can be found in Riley-Smith, et al, A Database of Crusaders to the Holy Land.
n the late spring and summer of 1096, crusaders destroyed most of the Jewish communities along the Rhine in a series of unprecedentedly large pogroms in France and Germany in which thousands of Jews were massacred, driven to suicide, or forced to convert to Christianity.[9][10][11][9] Twelve Jews were murdered in Speyer, where the Bishop saved the rest of the Jews for a large payment, but in Worms some 800 were murdered. In Mainz, over one thousand Jews were murdered, as well as more in Trier, Metz, Cologne, and elsewhere. Others were subjected to forced baptism and conversion. The preacher Folkmar and Count Emicho of Flonheim were the main inciters and leaders of the massacre. The major chroniclers of the 1096 killings are Solomon bar Simson and Albert of Aachen.[12][11][9][13]
Estimates of the number of Jewish men, women, and children murdered or driven to suicide by crusaders vary, ranging from 2,000 to 12,000.[14][15] Julius Aronius put the number killed at 4,000, regarding other figures as too high.[14] Norman Cohn puts the number at between 4,000 and 8,000 from May to June 1096.[12] Gedaliah ibn Yahya estimated that some 5,000 Jews were killed from April to June 1096.[16] Edward H. Flannery's estimate is that 10,000 were murdered over the longer January-to-July period, "probably one-fourth to one-third of the Jewish population of Germany and Northern France at that time."[
Added to timeline:
Western Civ 1
Chase Odle
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