Christian and Jewish perceptions of 1096: A case study of trier

Abstract

Divergent perceptions and evaluations of events, personalities, and movements are a commonplace of human existence. Such divergence is enlivening, provocative, irritating, and sometimes infuriating to those caught up in the moment; for the historian, such divergence is intriguing, stimulating, and almost always enlightening. For medievalists, there are not all that many opportunities to see the selfsame event, personality, or movement from diverse perspectives. Such opportunities are therefore to be prized.1 The First Crusade constituted a remarkable innovation for both aggressors and victims. As such, it attracted and continues to attract considerable interest. The dominant medieval reaction to the First Crusade was western-Christian admiration for the warriors who set forth in 1095 on an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem and achieved in 1099 a stunning military victory, seen as above all a triumph of the spirit.2 Not surprisingly, the striking western-Christian achievement had its victims, and Jews, eastern Christians, and Muslims looked upon the venture from a radically different perspective.3 Occasionally, we possess alternative versions of the selfsame crusading event, and these provide valuable opportunities to probe divergence of perspective among the various groupings that made up the fabric of medieval society.4 Opportunities for such probing with respect to the sanguinary attacks on western-European Jewish communities in the year 1096 are rare. Although considerable Jewish reportage of these assaults and the unusual Jewish responses they elicited has come down to us, this violence attracted little attention among the Christian majority.5 The three eyewitness accounts of the First Crusade the anonymous Gesta Francorum, Fulcher of Chartres' Historia Hierosolymitana, and Raymond of Aguilers' Historia Francorum contain no information whatsoever on the 1096 attacks, simply because the Christian forces with which