Pro tempore, No. 15, 2020.
Review article
The Causes for the Crusade attacks on the Jews in the Rhineland in 1096
Saša Vuković
Abstract
In this article, the author seeks to reconstruct the causes of the Crusader attacks upon Jews in Rhineland at the beginning of the First Crusade in 1096. To achieve this, he begins by presenting the position of Jewish communities in medieval Europe during the period preceding the above-mentioned event and then pays attention to explaining the various contextual or direct motives and causes of the massacres of Jews in Rhineland. Despite their intertwining in the medieval period and the consequent anachronistic and artificial character of such a division, for ease of reference, the author divides them into spiritual and social categories. Finally, he concludes that the plight of Jewish communities in the Rhineland cities in 1096 was the result of a combination of several supplementing factors and a social context that enabled the development of millennial enthusiasm in which Jews were perceived as the ultimate enemies of Christendom.
Keywords
Jews; First Crusade; Rhineland; eschatological millennialism; violence
Hrčak ID:
279051
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2020.
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