Emicho (crusader)

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Emicho , also called Emicho the Crusader (* probably after 1050 in Flonheim , Rheinhessen ; † probably in the early 12th century), was a German count in the Middle Ages and in 1096 one of the leaders of the German Crusade .

family

Emicho came from the Frankish noble family of Emichones that since the 9th century, first as vassals of the Salian ruler, later hereditary, the Nahegaugrafschaft occupied. Possibly he was identical to Nahegaugraf Emicho VI. (1076–1123), father of the first wild count Emich I (1103–1135) and the first count of Veldenz Gerlach I (1112–1146) as well as grandfather of Emich II. Von Leiningen († before 1138), who was the progenitor of Counts of the Leininger family apply.

prehistory

In 1095 at the Synod of Clermont , Pope Urban II had proclaimed the First Crusade for Western Europe to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims . The German Crusade, which was intended to be part of it on German soil, quickly became a People's Crusade , also known as the Peasants' Crusade or the Poor's Crusade . His spiritual father was Peter the Hermit , whose emotional crusade sermons had spread much faster and more sustainably than the Pope's official appeal.

Emicho's contribution

According to various sources, Emicho is said to have supplemented these crusade sermons with the claim that Jesus Christ appeared to him and had promised him the imperial crown and help with the conversion of European Jews if he joined the crusade. Other accounts speak of an angel drawing a cross on his chest and making him the leader in the fight against the Antichrist . Since the Jews were regarded as followers of the Antichrist, Emicho tried to either kill them or force them to convert through forced baptism .

In April 1096 Emicho gathered an army in the area of ​​the Middle Rhine , but it was poorly equipped. At the beginning of the desired route to Jerusalem, Emicho's people reached the episcopal cities of Speyer , Worms and Mainz one after the other on the Upper Rhine in May and perpetrated pogroms on the Jewish population everywhere . Jewish sources from this time refer to him as the greatest enemy of the Jews and accuse him of numerous atrocities. The thesis that Emicho von Mainz traveled back to Cologne to persecute the Jews there is considered unlikely .

A Jewish chronicler wrote about Emicho, citing reports from eyewitnesses:

“Emicho, the enemy of all Jews, was the worst of all our pushers, he spared neither old man nor virgin and did not show mercy for children, infants or sick people. He crushed the people of God like dust, struck the young men with his swords and slashed the pregnant women. "

In the summer of 1096, Emicho's army moved down the Danube from southwest Germany . Because they ran out of money and food, the crusaders began looting around the Hungarian border. However, the population resisted and many members of the weakened army were killed. In October 1096, Emicho's army finally disbanded. Most of the survivors tried to join other forces from the First Crusade.

Emicho himself returned home. There he fell victim to contempt for failing to fulfill his vow to move to Jerusalem. Nothing is known about the circumstances of his death.

literature

  • Ingo Toussaint: The Counts of Leiningen . Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Sigmaringen 1982. ISBN 3-7995-7017-9
  • Christian Larisika: The Jews on the Rhine 2 . Pedagogical Center Rhineland-Palatinate, Bad Kreuznach 2004. ISSN  0938-748X
  • Rudolf Hiestand: Jews and Christians in the crusade propaganda and with the crusade preachers . In: Alfred Haverkamp (ed.): Jews and Christians at the time of the crusades (lectures and research 47) . Sigmaringen 1999, pp. 35–71 ( digitized version )
  • Friedrich Lotter: Death or Baptism. The First Crusade Forced Baptism Problem . In: Alfred Haverkamp (ed.): Jews and Christians at the time of the crusades (lectures and research 47) . Sigmaringen 1999, pp. 107–152 ( digitized version )
  • Gerd Mentgen: The Jews of the Middle Rhine-Moselle area in the High Middle Ages with special consideration of the persecutions of the crusades . In: Monthly Issues for Protestant Church History of the Rhineland 44/1995, pp. 37–75

Individual evidence

  1. Zealot with a cross and a sword. (No longer available online.) Die Legende e. V., archived from the original on May 6, 2008 ; Retrieved August 29, 2010 .