Image: Pope Urban II calls for the First Crusade at Clermont Cathedral, Bibloteque National du Paris.

As the historian John Weiss explains in Ideology of Death:

Map: Jewish communities and population at the start of the Crusades. Image: Execution of Jews during the Crusades.  The Crusades.

The accumulated hatreds and fears resulting from charges of deicide (murder of a deity--Jesus in this case) and usury exploded in the Crusades. In the eleventh century, Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem were persecuted by the ruling Muslims, who also defiled the most sacred of Christian churches, then Church of the Holy Sepulcher, site of the Resurrection and tomb of Jesus. Spurred by the preaching of Pope Urban II and scores of Christian clergy, in 1095 crusading nobles set out under the sign of the cross to free the Holy Land from the infidel. Crop failure, famine, and plague created a surge of religious passion; in a pre-scientific age natural disasters were seen as the wrath of the Lord. To appease God, the holy places must be redeemed. The pope promised salvation to those who would slay the offending Muslims. Local priests reminded the faithful that the most terrible enemies of Christ were permitted to live and prosper in the very midst of Christian civilization. “First avenge the crucified,” a monk wrote, “then go off to fight the Turks.” As a contemporary noted, the Crusaders “exterminated by many massacres the Jews of almost all Gaul, with the exception of those who accepted conversion,” deeming it “unjust to permit the enemies of Christ to remain alive in their own country, when they had taken up arms to drive out the infidels abroad.” The abbot of Cluny asked why Christians should travel to "the ends of the world to fight the Saracens, when we permit among us other infidels a thousand times more guilty toward Christ than the Mohammedans?” Religious passion, greed, and the vulnerability of Jews led to the rise of violent mobs who murdered thousands to the cry of conversion or death. It seemed just that the wealth of blasphemers should fall to those who did the work of the Lord. John Weiss, Ideology of Death, p. 15.

Anti-Jewish Myths Evolve in the Middle Ages

Image: Anti-Semitic pamphlet with illustration of ritual murder of a Christian boy by a Jew.

During the centuries of the Crusades, myths about Jews circulated, helping to heighten popular hatred and fear of Jews. It became commonplace among Christian groups to think of Jews as agents of Satan.

Images of the satanic Jew adorned cathedral courtyards and town squares of Europe where “miracle” plays presented the life, death and Resurrection of Christ. Take, for example, the   Passion Play): Jews were depicted as demons who knew full well that Christ was the son of God. While Christ carries the cross, he is tortured by bloodthirsty, cursing devils with hooked noses, horns and tails.

The Jews were made to seem as evil as Christ was divine.

The Myth of the Blood Libel

A popular anti-Jewish myth that gained widespread acceptance was the notion that Jews murdered Christians because they need blood to perform satanic rites—the charge of ritual murder. It was believed that Jews, usually led by rabbis, kidnapped Christian children on Jewish holidays in order to bleed them to death for occult rituals.

According to medieval myth, Jews thought the Christian blood could purge the diseases caused by their own corrupt blood, or cure the wounds caused by circumcision. Christians believed that Jews mixed the blood in their ritual foods at Passover in order to sanctify them. Some thought that the captive Christians were crucified in order to reenact Christ’s murder. If a Christian child was murdered near Easter or Passover, there was a good chance that local Jews would be massacred. Into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at least two dozen ritual murder trials took place in Central and Eastern Europe

The Myth that Jews Desecrated the Host
Miracle of the Desecrated Host (Scenes 1-6) 1465-69, each panel is 43 x 58 cm, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino. The Miracle of the Desecrated Host was painted by Uccello in Urbino between 1465 and 1469 as the predella for the altarpiece showing the Communion of the Apostles that Justus of Ghent (Joos van Wassenhove) painted in 1472 for the church of Corpus Domini in Urbino. The predella tells the antisemitic legend that Jews desecrated the Host through six episodes. The six scenes are not unanimously attributed to Paolo Uccello. Web Gallery of Art
By the end of the fourteenth century, Jews were seen to embody evil. There were no longer tales of Jews converting. Rather, it was believed that Jews stabbed the Host—literally stabbed Christ. Images of Jews as scorpions and pigs adorned Cathedral walls. The proliferation of anti-Jewish images in the Middle Ages presaged the Nazi propaganda that depicted Jews as satanic figures.
Image: Jews mocking the Host at Pressburg, (Bratislava) in 1591, contemporary woodcut from the Kupferstichkabinet, Berlin.		Image: Late fifteenth century anti-Semitic painting from Frankfurt-Main depicting Jews engaged in ritual murder and bestiality and associating with the Devil.
Image: This stone relief concerns the so-called "Judensau". This derogatory portrayal of the Jews in intimate contact with the "impure" swine was common in the Middle Ages.		Stained Glass Windows: Church and Synagogue (Ecclesia and Synagoga) stained glass windows in the Elisabeth Church in Marburg, Germany. Depicts the Church as triumphant, the Synagogue as blind and fallen.

The Myth of Jews Poisoning Wells

Image: Illustration of a Jew poisoning the Christian water supply by dropping some potion into the well.

The Black Plague in the middle of the fourteenth century killed approximately one-third of the population of Europe. At the time, it was not known how the illness spread, but stories and rumors circulated that Jews had poisoned the wells. The accusation was totally unfounded. Nonetheless, many Christians believed the myth.

This accusation led to severe consequences for Jews. More than sixty Jewish communities were burned to the ground with all their occupants killed. In cities in Switzerland and Germany—Basel, Cologne, Strasbourg, and Mainz—Jews were tortured and, in some cases, burned to death in bonfires. Christian writers rationalized the attacks on Jews, claiming that Jews deserved death for killing Jesus and for taking unfair economic advantage of Christians.

The Fourth Lateran Council

Image: Pope Innocent III.

Pope Innocent III convened the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The Council set forth a number of regulations that would make Jews identifiable in Christian society.

Image: Jewish woman with yellow badge.

In France, Jews were to wear yellow badges, often round in shape. In Germany, Jews were required to wear pointed hats. In addition, Jews were banned from holding public office and were forbidden to appear in public during Holy Week. Jews were also required to pay a tax to their local Christian clergy. As James Carroll explains in Constantine’s Sword, “the Fourth Lateran Council fundamentally changed the situation of Jews both legally and theologically.” (p. 282).

teran Councils.

Image: Twelfth Century dress of a commoner (left), a Jew (middle), and a knight (right). Note the obligatory pointed hat that is part of the Jew's attire. From The History of Costume, By Braun & Schneider - c.1861-1880, Plate #15d - Twelfth Century.