The First Crusade

CHAPTER 2 · 1096–1099 · The Crusades, 1095–1291

The crusade’s first blood is shed in Europe, against Europeans. Ahead of the lords march the poor, under preachers like Peter the Hermit — and in the Rhineland in the spring of 1096 armed bands turn on the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz, killing thousands who will not accept baptism. Crusading’s first victims are the Jews of Christendom itself. It is named here plainly, and mourned. The People’s Crusade then marches on and is annihilated by the Turks near Nicaea.

The turn: Antioch, June 1098 — the siege within a siege.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.