17 - Crusaders and Mass Killing at Jerusalem in 1099

Summary

Crusading in the Levant remains one of the notorious chapters in medieval history. Though rich in source material and featuring an expansive historiography, the violence of the subject has seldom received attention as a discrete topic. This study limits the analysis to the First Crusade and specifically to events at Jerusalem in July 1099. Consulting Western, Armenian, Arabic and Hebrew sources reveals the nature and perception of this eleventh-century event. Crucial considerations include: pre-existing contextual tumult in the Levant, questions around crusader extermination policy, source material reliability, and if crusade violence was exceptional. Within a century, the fall of Jerusalem became a tool in the service of political agendas. This created mythistory that served to illuminate as well as obfuscate and influenced subsequent scholarship. The central question persists: Did genocide occur at Jerusalem? The sources agree that violence, bloodshed and mass killing characterize the crusader victory. The research concludes that it is not necessary to think or argue that the crusades were in fact genocide, but underscores what we might learn from looking at the violence of the crusades through the paradigm of genocide studies.