The original idea for the
First Crusade that had been preached by
Pope Urban II at the
Council of Clermont in 1095 had already turned into a much different popular movement, the
People's Crusade, led by
Peter the Hermit. Peter's
preaching of the Crusade spread much more quickly than the official versions of Urban's call. Peter's version influenced Emicho, who spread his own story that Christ had appeared to him. Infused with the teachings of the
Gospel of Luke he felt chosen to fulfill the "
end of times" prophecy. Emicho envisioned that he would march on
Constantinople and overcome the forces there, taking over the title of "last World Emperor" in accordance with canonical prophetic tradition. All Christian armies, Latin and Greek, would then unite and march to seize
Jerusalem from the
Saracens thus prompting the
Second Coming and denouement with the
Antichrist. Inspired by such exulting promises, a few thousand
Franks and
Germans merged and marched east in April 1096.
Followers Emicho's army attracted many unusual followers, including a group who worshipped a goose they believed to be filled with the
Holy Spirit (see
Women in the Crusades). The army included noblemen and knights such as
Drogo Count of Nesle, Hartmann I, Count of Dillingen-Kyburg,
Thomas, Lord of Marle and La Fère and Count of Amien, and
William the Carpenter, Viscount of Milun. This contradicts the often repeated narrative that Emicho's army was mostly composed of peasants and burghers who were ignorant and instinctively prejudiced against Jews, mostly for economic reasons. Instead, there were a number of relatively educated and wealthy men, likely accompanied by clerics, in Emicho's army who would have known that forced conversions were forbidden according to the tenets of the Church. The violence of the Rhineland massacres cannot be explained away under the assumption that the army was mostly composed of ignorant and provincial peasants.
Rhineland massacres Count Emicho's precise role in the Rhineland Massacres, the series of violent attacks and forced conversions of the Rhineland's Jews just prior to the First Crusade, has been the subject of significant debate. There were many crusading forces moving through the
Rhineland, but most were interested primarily in reaching the Holy Land. For instance, when
Peter the Hermit and his mob of Crusaders passed through these towns and threatened the Jewish population, they had been amenable to bribes and largely left the Jews free from harassment. Although Emicho has frequently been referenced in secondary and tertiary sources as having been present during the massacres of Jews in
Cologne and
Worms, there is sparse evidence in the primary accounts to support his involvement. Indeed, the only massacre in which Emicho definitively participated was that in
Mainz. The Jewish writer of the account known as the
Mainz Anonymous mentions Emicho as having been in the rough vicinity of Speyer during the massacre there, but clearly notes he did not participate in the violence. They appealed to the Archbishop
Ruthard and the area's lay lords to protect them from the approaching mob, offering money and valuable possessions to further encourage the lords. In an attempt to deter the approaching crusaders, Ruthard closed the city's gates and attempted to hide Jews in his palace. Ultimately, however, the city gates were opened by sympathetic burghers within Mainz and the Jews were attacked despite the archbishop's best attempts to protect them. Part of what distinguished Emicho and his army from other crusading armies that crossed the Rhineland was their unwillingness to be swayed from committing violence by bribes. Beneath either motivation behind massacring the Rhineland's Jews is the reality that Jews in 1096 were alienated from their Christian neighbors. Jews and Muslims were scarcely distinguished in the eleventh century as both were seen as agents of the devil and in league with one another, plotting against Christendom. Thus, it is not surprising that a crusade ostensibly directed against one group could be seamlessly redirected against the other. Especially in the apocalyptic mindset, both Jews and Muslims had to be destroyed or converted for the Earth to reach the end of days.
Disintegration of Emicho's army The army continued down the Rhine until they reached the
Danube, which they followed to
Hungary. Here, after having run out of money and food, they began to pillage. Much of the army was killed by the Hungarians; the rest split up to join the other Crusader armies, and Emicho went back home to his family, where he was scorned for not fulfilling his vow to capture
Jerusalem. ==Legacy==