Shepherds' crusade of 1320

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The Shepherd's Crusade of 1320 was the second of the so-called Shepherd's Crusades. The first Shepherds' Crusade took place in 1251. The aim of the second Shepherd's Crusade was actually to fight the Moors on the Iberian Peninsula . Mainly Jews were attacked and killed on the way there. After the crusaders reached Aragon , the crusade broke up.

Instead of shepherds crusade ( English Shepherds' Crusade ; French Croisade of Pastoureaux ) is sometimes the term Pastorellen Crusade used. The pastorels (literally "shepherds", French pastoureaux ) were the participants in these crusades.

course

The second Shepherd's Crusade began in Normandy in May 1320 when a young shepherd claimed that the Holy Spirit had come upon him and instructed him to fight the Moors in Spain . Similar to the crusade of 1251 , this movement mostly involved young men, women, and children. They marched to Paris to ask Philip V to lead them, but he refused to meet with them.

Instead, they marched south into Aquitaine and attacked castles, royal officials, priests, and lepers on their way. They usually targeted Jews, however, and they attacked them in Saintes , Verdun , Cahors , Albi and Toulouse , which they reached on June 12th. Pope John XXII. in Avignon gave the order to stop them. When they finally got to Spain, their attacks on the Jews were well known, and James II of Aragon vowed to protect his citizens. At first they were forbidden from entering the kingdom at all. But when this happened in July, Jacob warned his entire nobility to ensure the safety of the Jews.

As expected, the pastorels attacked some Jews, particularly in the fortress of Montclus , where more than 300 Jews were killed. Jacob's son Alfons was sent out to control them. Those responsible for the Montclus massacre were arrested and executed. There were no further incidents and the crusade broke up.

background

Similar to the First Shepherds' Crusade, this "crusade" is viewed as an uprising against the French monarchy . The Jews were seen as symbols of royal power, as they relied more than any other part of the population on the personal protection of the king, both in France and in Aragon , and often also a symbol of the royal hated by the poor and by the high-taxed peasants Economic system were. Only a few years earlier, Jews had been allowed to return to France after being driven out in 1306. All funds owed to the Jews were confiscated after their expulsion from the monarchy, which presumably also contributed to the rural people associating the Jews with the king.

consequences

In 1321 King Philip fined those communities in which Jews had been killed. This led to a second uproar, this time among the urban population, although later chroniclers came up with the idea of ​​a "cowherd's crusade," a second wave of the shepherds' crusade. Although this never took place, there were more attacks on the Jews because of the fines.

Sources and literature

  • David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages . Princeton, 1996.
  • Malcolm Barber, The Pastoureaux of 1320 , in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 20.
  • Joaquín Miret y Sans: Le Massacre des juifs de Montclus in 1320, episode de l'entrée des Pastoureaux dans l'Aragon . Cerf, Versailles 1907

Supplementary literature

  • Norman Cohn : The New Earthly Paradise. Revolutionary millenarianism and mystical anarchism in medieval Europe. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-499-55472-0 ( rowohlts encyclopedia ).