Why did the crusaders kill Jews?

Answer 1

There was an explosion of hatred against the Jews in much of Europe from about 1095 onwards and it lasted, with intervals, for the rest of Middle Ages. It seems that some unscrupulous crusaders decided to plunder the Jews in the Rhineland and, in some cases, avoid fighting in the Middle East. Beyond that, the reasons for it aren't well understood. However, after the First Crusade, slaughtering Jews became a common feature of the Crusades. It may have been partly because the Crusades encouraged mindless religious fanaticism. (Incidentally, there was violence in Northern France as well as the Rhineland). Note also that in some parts of Europe debts became null and void on the death of the lender. This may have encouraged some crusaders who'd fitted themselves out for their adventure with loans from Jews to murder the latter, though murder was of course punishable everywhere. These crusaders were allowed to get away with it, and this encouraged further pogroms). As the Middle Ages progressed, there were further discrimmination and violence against the Jews continued. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council [of bishops] ordered all towns and cities to make Jews wear a distinctive badge on their outermost clothing and it decreed that they should only be allowed to live in specific areas of towns (ghettos, though the word wasn't invented till later). When sexually motivated murders were committed, very often the Jews were accused. At the time of the Great Plague of 1348-51 ('Black Death') in some places the Jews were accused of poisoning the water. Accusations of that kind - along with the violence that they often triggered - were common in many parts of Europe. It wasn't just in Germany. In England, for example, the coronation of Richard Lionheart in 1189 was marked by a anti-Jewish violence in London, York and Norwich; and just over a century later the Jews were expelled from England altogether by Edward I.

Answer 2

1. Crusading - meaning going to the Holy Land - was an expensive business. Some 'knights' decided to finance their expeditions by robbing Jews on the way.

2. The Crusades encouraged religious fanaticism.

3. One of the motives for the (early) Crusades was to get upper class robbers and thugs out of Western Europe.

Answer 3

The Crusaders were on a mission to retake the Holy Land (modern-day Israel) from the Turks (Muslims) who ruled it. More often than not, communities of Jews were massacred simply because they were in the way. If the Crusaders went out of their way to kill Jews, it would be because of the centuries-long antisemitism about the Jews and Jesus Christ.

Answer 4

because their ruler told them to