Rhineland Massacres
“ | As [the Crusaders] were led through the cities of the Rhine and the Main and also the Danube, they either utterly destroyed the execrable race of the Jews wherever they found them (being even in this matter zealously devoted to the Christian religion) or forced them into the bosom of the Church. | „ |
~ Medieval chronicler Ekkehard of Aura about the Rhineland Massacres. |
The Rhineland Massacres, also called the German Crusade or the Hurban Shum (destruction of Shum) were a series of anti-Semitic pogroms in Europe in the spring of 1096. The attacks were carried out by members of the People's Crusade, a loosely-organised rabble led by Peter the Hermit who had been inspired by the preaching of both Peter and Pope Urban II to fight against all "infidels" (although Urban had specifically only meant the Seljuk Turks who had captured Jerusalem). The exact number of victims is unknown, but is thought to be at least several thousand.