If I remember my history correctly,in June 1099 Crusaders began a five-week siege of Jerusalem, which fell in July 1099.
The preaching of the First Crusade inspired an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence. In parts of France and Germany, Jews were perceived as just as much an enemy as Muslims: they were held responsible for the crucifixion,
None of this is new.
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Jews, of course, kept records of the locales and families murdered by the Crusades.
Just as now there is a whitewashing of the murder of Jews during the Crusades, there will be ‘serious scholars’ in the future whitewashing the Holocaust.
But the day-by-day facts can be found:
http://www.chabad.org/calendar/view/day.asp?tdate=4/30/2012
Today in Jewish History
In the early 1070s, the Muslim Turks commenced an offensive against the Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem. Pope Gregory VII offered his help to defend the Greek Christians, but the army he promised never materialized.
In 1095, his successor, Urban II, began to call for a holy war to liberate the Christians in Jerusalem. By the next year, more than 100,000 men had rallied to his call, forming the First Crusade. Urban and the local clergymen in Europe felt that the Crusade had another purpose as well—to annihilate all non-Christians in Europe who refused to convert to Christianity.
On their way to the Holy Land, the mobs of crusaders attacked many Jewish communities. On Shabbat, the 8th of Iyar, the Jews of Speyer (Rhineland-Palatinate), Germany were massacred. Many of the Jews of Worms, Germany were also massacred on this day; some of them took refuge in a local castle for a week before being slaughtered as they recited their morning prayers (see “Today in Jewish History” for Sivan 1).
Link: The First Crusade
Christians in the Middle East could use a Pope Urban II these days...
“[A]n account written in high style, full of subtlety and hidden meanings — many of which have remained hidden and unidentified since she wrote the text” is open to divergent interpretations. And I don’t think Byzantium is considered to have been in “a healthy position” at this time either. Where does the author think the phrase “Byzantine” politics came from? Fratricidal brothers and plots upon plots are the modern image of Byzantium.
But it is important to see that even after the schism, the East and West Churches could still work together, even if the alliance was undermined from within by worldly ambition.
Stephen of Bloise fled the siege, to the shame of his wife - the daughter of William the Conqueror. He returned and hoped to do better. The letters between him and his wife are a historic treasure.
William the Carpenter - called that because of the way he used an axe to cleave flesh fled also - and Tancred (later Prince of Galilee) the cousin of Bohemund was sent to bring him back.
The Doge of Venice had the last laugh on Constantinople and the Crusade impulse they had unleashed.