Talk:Siege of Jerusalem (1099)

Number of victims

The article states that all inhabitants of J were killed - but that's quite meaningless unless one quantifies how many inhabitants remained in the city?

Additionally, the writer claims that subsequent to all of the inhabitants of Jerusalem "massacred with indiscriminate violence", the "True Cross" was recovered by questioning these selfsame inhabitants. Unlikely.

This is not really as big a problem as people like to make it. It's partly a matter of the quirks of medieval chronicling, partly the authors of the article (like me) being lazy and making certain assumptions about the audience. The crusaders may not have killed "all" the inhabitants, but sufficiently large numbers of them that they thought it was everybody - certainly most if not all the Muslims, most of the Jews, and possibly any Christians that stayed behind, but most of them left or were expelled beforehand. There's a month between the capture of the city and the Battle of Ascalon, which is plenty of time for the Christians to return, and these certainly would have been the people to question about the True Cross - why would the Muslims or Jews know or care about that? (In any case, the remaining Muslims and Jews were expelled, so there must have been some left to expel.) Adam Bishop 21:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I AGREE! Well said Adam Bishop!I just added this to the main article (the BOLD words are only on the discussion page):

The Gesta francorum et aliorum Hierosolymytanorum (The deeds of the Franks and the other pilgrims to Jerusalem), states some people managed to escape the siege unharmed. Its anonymous author wrote, "When the pagans had been overcome, our men seized great numbers, both men and women, either killing them or keeping them captive, as they wished."[1] Later it is written, "[Our leaders] also ordered all the Saracen dead to be cast outside because of the great stench, since the whole city was filled with their corpses; and so the living Saracens dragged the dead before the exits of the gates and arranged them in heaps, as if they were houses. No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, for funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids, and no one knows their number except God alone." [2]

This is a highly trusted source for info about the Jerusalem siege. As you can clearly see, some were kept as captives. Later the survivors are made to clean up all of the dead bodies. If everyone was dead, I highly doubt the French nobles nor the foot soldiers would have done it themselves!!!(!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor!)

Battleboxes

I have to say, they make the article look like kids stuff. It's a bumer when you spend a lot of time working on the text to be of best quality possible and you have a "battlebox" taking up half the page with questionably useful information on old conflicts which we dont really have solid figures for anyway. You dont find battleboxes in academic literature, but you do find them in glossy picture-laden 8x11 format military history books in bookstore bargin bins. Stbalbach 15:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It's an old habit...I never found them useful for sieges but I guess people are adding them to siege articles now too. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history for the stuff about "battleboxes" and "warboxes", and there is some discussion in a few of the archived talk pages there. I can't remember whether I argued for or against them in the last discussion :) At least we have stopped colour-coding them by continent, though... Adam Bishop 17:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Ease of assault

The article first describes how difficult the siege was, and then, suddenly, the crusaders just enter the city with the help of siege engines. This begs some questions: Why did they start with a siege at all? If the assault turned out to be so easy, why did wait so long? Or did they need the time to build the siege engines? Was there really so few fighting inside the city that the massacre started right away? It all sounds to me as if the defenders were few in number and relied on the strength of their fortification which then turned out to be not so good. Maybe somebody could clarify. Simon A. 09:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to the info box, the siege was only six weeks before the attack, which is actually very short peroid for a siege (pre-cannon). And yes, a mere 1000 troops (also per info box) is way too few to properly man fortifications. Jon 13:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah it was pretty short, especially compared to the Siege of Antioch, which took months. Jerusalem was not very important to the Muslims, the Fatimids didn't even bother to send a relief army until it was too late, so it wasn't particularly well-defended. It was difficult for the crusaders because of the lack of food and water and horses, not for the people inside; the crusaders needed the time to build siege engines, which, when you are starving and thirsty and don't have any wood available, might take awhile. Adam Bishop 15:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The burning of the Jews and their synagogue

The info is missing from both this page and the main First Crusade article. Both mention the massacre of the Muslims in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the burning of the synagogue was the other major atrocity performed. If you look for it on the internet, most accounts will say that the Jews were rounded up by the crusaders or had already gathered there for the Sabbath and where locked in. Then the building was set on fire. I’ve even read on account how Duke Godfrey of Bouillon sang a song of praise to Jesus ("Christ, we adore thee") [3] while he circled the flaming complex.

However, I just recently watched an episode of the television show “Uncommon Knowledge” (which originally aired April 22, 2002) and it held a forum discussing the Crusades. The moderator Thomas Madden welcomed two guests:

1) William Hamblin, Professor of History, Brigham Young University

2) Thomas Madden, Associate Professor of History and Department Chair, Saint Louis University; Author, A Concise History of the Crusades

In the middle of the discussion, Thomas Madden shed his own educated view on what he thinks the circumstances were that led to the Jews being burnt alive in their synagogue. The following transcript section of the show's discussion was taken from the Hoover Institute website:

"Thomas Madden: And they speak of three thousand, approximately, people being killed. But not, as you get the western sources, where they speak of rivers of blood, that people are wading through rivers of blood, show up all the time in the Middle Ages, but they're not real. But nevertheless, there was a massacre. As for the Jewish synagogue, what appears to be the case there, it probably happened, people have argued about it, but this was not a situation in which the Crusaders would have rounded up all the Jews and put them in the synagogue and said now we're burning it down because you are Jews in a synagogue. Rather, the Jews who were the Jewish defenders, and there weren't that many, but those Jewish defenders of the city in 1099, knew the rules of the game. They knew that their lives were forfeit now, and so they wanted to go to their synagogue and were allowed to go to their synagogue..."

Peter Robinson: To prepare for death.

Thomas Madden: To prepare for death, that's right."

I thought this to be very interesting. Never have I heard it from this point of view.

I’ve written Prof. Madden on whether he thinks these Jews fled from the “Northern” or “Southern” wall defensives, but he has yet to write me back. The reason I wrote him was because I was unsure which one they left. It seems more plausible that they left from the northern wall shortly before it was taken by the Frankish armies led by Duke Godfrey. On the contrary, the southern wall was FAR MORE successful in combating the Provencal armies of Raymond of Toulouse. So I doubt they would have fled from there. The southern defensive did not falter until news of the northern breach spread like wild fire around the city.

Do you think that some of the quoted transcript should be added to this and the main article? If so, I'll leave it to someone more qualified than myself. You've already got the info right here. No research required!

I you would like to watch this edition of the show, CLICK HERE! and you will be able to watch it in either Real Player or Windows Media Player. (!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 17:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC))

Jewish massacre

The article already says "over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning. Muslims, Jews, and even a few of the Christians were all massacred with indiscriminate violence." I don't know why need to list 5 different sources in a lengthy paragraph that "prove" Jews were killed, there is no debate about it, the Crusaders killed everyone - Jews, Muslims and Christians. This is standard history, it can be summarized in one sentence with a link to a reliable scholarly source (do we need links to TV programs?) See History of the Jews and the Crusades which is a more detailed treatment. -- Stbalbach 00:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The page focuses more on the chronicles that mention the deaths of the muslims. I put the info on the page to reflect what happened to the Jews. I'm sure there is a way that I can mold all of it into a more fluid sentence. (Ghostexorcist 00:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC))

The article about the Jews and the Crusades has a very brief sentence about the burning of the synagogue. It doesn't go into great detail and there is no source given. (Ghostexorcist 00:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC))

I know but it should, it should be the article that deals with the Jews in and the Crusades in most detail. Perhaps move the detail from here to there, and a summary here? -- Stbalbach 00:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I was thinking about doing that while I was at work. (Ghostexorcist 09:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC))