Crusades Β· War Crimes & Atrocities
The Crusades produced atrocities that have echoed through nearly a thousand years of memory. The holy war's ideology of righteous violence loosed massacres of the inhabitants of captured cities β Muslim, Jewish, and Eastern Christian alike β most infamously at Jerusalem in 1099 and at Constantinople in 1204, where crusaders sacked the greatest Christian city in the world. The movement also unleashed lethal persecution of Europe's own Jews, and saw notorious killings of prisoners. Cruelty was not the monopoly of either side, but the religious framing of the wars gave their massacres a peculiar and lasting infamy.
5,000+
deaths
Victims: Jewish communities of the Rhineland(Thousands killed at Worms, Mainz, Cologne, and other towns; estimates vary)
10,000+
deaths
Victims: Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem(Eyewitnesses describe a general slaughter; medieval figures are exaggerated but the massacre was real)
2,700+
deaths
Victims: Muslim prisoners of war held by Richard the Lionheart(Around 2,700 prisoners executed, along with family members; figures from the chronicles)
10,000+
deaths
Victims: The Christian population and heritage of Constantinople(Thousands killed; the greater loss was the systematic plunder and desecration of the city)
20,000+
deaths
Victims: The defenders and inhabitants of Acre(Many killed in the storming; survivors slaughtered or enslaved as the city fell)