Talk:Rhineland massacres/Archive 1

Name change
"The German Crusade of 1096 is that part of the First Crusade in which peasant crusaders, mostly from Germany, attacked not Muslims but Jews."

This definition is arbitrary und unscientific.

A: The lable "German" is misleading

1. The perpetrators were not exclusivly German. A large portion of the participants originated from France.

2. The pogroms did not take place exclusively on German soil. The first pogroms started in France (as is clearly documented by letters sent from French to German jews to warn them of the Crusaders). And after the massacers in the Rhineland there were pogroms e.g. in Bohemia.

3. The target of the Crusades was not Germany. The massacers happened on the way to Jerusalem. Although that target was not reached, the Crusaders left Germany and caused further trouble on their way.

4. The label "German crusade" is not used in general. If it is used, it most likely refers to the (failed) Crusade of 1197 of Emperor Henry VI a century later!

B: The German crusade cannot be separated from the Peasants' crusade.

1. The peasant crusaders moved in several groups that united and split and united again. E.g. Count Emicho is presented in the article as the leader of the Crusade. After he left the Rhineland, his group stopped to attack Jews (or at least there are no further reports.) But at the time Emicho had left the Rhineland already, another group (that had split from Emicho's group) went up to the city of Trier to attack Jews there.

2. Virtually ALL groups of the Peasants' crusade harassed or attacked Jews. Some could be pleased with money (including Peter and Walter), others plundered and murdered (Emicho et el.).

3. The "German" crusade and the peasants' crusade happened at the same time (spring 1096) and in the the same areas (Northern France - Rhineland/centralGermany - Bohemia - Hungary).

C: I strongly doubt that these events were the first organised attacks on jews. I am not an expert on this subject, but there was at least one large massacre of jews in York before the crusades.


 * I am not currently in a position to argue against this in detail, but as for point A.4, that is true, which is why this has "1096" in the title (I envisioned someday writing an article about the 1197 crusade, but I haven't done it yet). You are also correct about point B, but this is a significantly different section of the Peoples' Crusade that it has been spun off into a separate article. I believe it is also a subsection of the Peoples' Crusade section in the First Crusade article. There are other groups in the Peoples' Crusade that, for example, did not even make it to Hungary, which we have also mentioned, but this specific part seems significant enough for its own article. Perhaps it is an historiographical conceit o separate it like that, but there is quite a lot of writing about this. As for point C, you may be thinking of the massacre in York before the Third Crusade, about 90 years later. (I'll give a fuller response when I am able.) Adam Bishop 04:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You are right that those events justify an article for themselves. I simply objected to the title "German crusade" because it's not generally in use and - even worse - misleading.

My suggestions:

(1) Drop "German crusade" and call this article something like "Jews and the (First) Crusade" or whatever seems appropriate.

(2) Expand this article to include other instances of anti-jewish violence during the first crusade (e.g. extortion of money, massacre in Jerusalem etc.) to present a complete picture to the readers.

(3) Create links from "First Crusade" and "Peasants' Crusade" to this article

As for point C, it seems that you are right.


 * That's an interesting suggestion...there were other examples of extortion by the nobles' crusade too, and a lot of violence in Jerusalem, as you say. Adam Bishop 15:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Another interesting detail is that by attacking jews, the crusaders were actually challenging the authority of German emperor Henry IV. Jews were explicitly protected by empirial law. But Henry IV was still at odds with the Papacy over control of the church in Germany (remember Canossa). So it would be interesting to check if the attacks om Jews were also politically motivated. 1 Feb. 06

German-Jews in Jerusalem during the First Crusade ...
"There seems to be some support even for the view that there were German Jews in Jerusalem at this time. The story is told, on the authority of Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm, that a young man named Dolberger was saved by a Jew in Palestine who knew German, and that out of gratitude one of his family who was among the Crusaders saved some of the Jews in Palestine and carried them to Worms ("Seder ha-Dorot," ed. 1878, p. 252). In the second half of the eleventh century halakic questions were sent from Germany to Jerusalem (Epstein, in "Monatsschrift," xlvii. 344)."

- It could be possible that some of these German-Jews had migrated to Jerusalem during the Great German Pilgrimage of 1064. Perhaps this happened even earlier, when King Henry II of Germany forced all Jews from Mainz in 1012, some three years after "mad" Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the Holy Sepulchre on October 18, 1009. Either way, the above paragraph suggests that German-Jews were living in Jerusalem prior to the pogroms led by Count Emicho in the summer of 1096. (!Mi nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 03:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC))


 * Dreadlocke, do not add anything to direct quotes. I realize that I originally added the thing about Rabbi Elijah being a "mystic", but it wasn't apart of the original paragraph, so I deleted it. Check out the link if you don't believe me. Its under the "Under the Arabs" Heading. (!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 02:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC))

GA Re-Review and In-line citations
Members of the WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

German Crusade, 1096

 * result:Delist 4-0

It was warned 5 months ago for having no inline cits and nothing has been done. Delist Kyriakos 06:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Aye, almost nothing has been done, Delist. Homestarmy 18:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Delist per above. Teemu08 21:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delist per above. Rlevse 14:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the consensus to delist. Diez2 16:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delist per above. LuciferMorgan 14:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Jewish reactions
The tense in the second paragraph of the section is confusing to me, but I'm reluctant to change it since I'm not familiar with the source material and don't want to accidentally change the meaning. Someone who knows the source material should clean up the tense, and maybe provide a citation.--Hgebel 12:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Why is it confusing? Adam Bishop 21:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, Adam. Sorry, confusing was a poor word choice. The first two sentences of the paragraph are in past tense, then the paragraph switches to present tense. The preceding and succeeding paragraphs are also in the past tense. This is what I was thinking of editing the paragraph to:


 * The Hebrew chronicles portray the Rhineland Jews as martyrs who willingly sacrificed themselves in order to honour God and to preserve their own honour. Faced with conversion or death, they usually chose death. On numerous occasions, a prominent Jew was willing to convert, only to speak out against Christ and Christianity when a crowd gathered for the baptism, mocking Jesus as a product of "lust" and "menstruation"; a swift death followed. Count Emicho was also cursed whenever he was mentioned ("may his bones be ground into dust"), and the Pope was compared to Satan.


 * Or to leave it in the present tense, but make it clear that the Chronicles are mentioning it, not that it is still happening:


 * The Hebrew chronicles portray the Rhineland Jews as martyrs who willingly sacrificed themselves in order to honour God and to preserve their own honour. Faced with conversion or death, they usually chose death. On numerous occasions, the chronicles mention a prominent Jew who expresses a willingness to convert, only to speak out against Christ and Christianity when a crowd has gathered for the baptism, mocking Jesus as a product of "lust" and "menstruation"; a swift death follows. The chronicles curse Count Emicho whenever he is mentioned ("may his bones be ground into dust"), and compare the Pope to Satan.


 * I'm always (maybe excessively) reluctant to change tense on subjects I am not well versed in myself, as sometimes little tense changes can make big differences in meaning. If the chronicles in question are available on the internet, a citation could be added to make it easier to see exactly what the chronicles say.--Hgebel 11:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh I see...in that case your second paragraph is better, I think, because the chronicles haven't changed, and they still say that. The Mainz Anonymous is online, here. Adam Bishop 13:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I put in the second paragraph. Thanks for your help, Adam.--Hgebel 13:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Article Title
As has already been pointed out, the title of this article MUST be changed. These events are simply never referred to as the "German Crusade" in scholarship in any language. It is greatly misleading. Although many of the participants were German speakers ("German" not yet being a recognized identity), there were also French speakers involved, such as William the Carpenter of Melun. As Robret Chazan and others have pointed out numerous times, the Hebrew sources themselves also clearly indicate that the crusade army was drawn from a variety of places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.108.70.239 (talk) 18:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I will be bold. I have never seen a this described as "German Crusade" in all my studies. -- Secisek (talk) 21:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm...I'm pretty sure I've seen it called that. Or did I just make up that title for Wikipedia? Adam Bishop (talk) 01:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've never seen it called this either, but GoogleBooks gives The Routledge Atlas of Jewish History (2003) and  Popes from the Ghetto (1964). A few other less important ones appear, and there is even "German Crusade of 1101" in print. Take that for what it's worth. The current title works, so long as the article covers all such persecutions and not just German(y)-related ones, if there are even others. Srnec (talk) 04:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they were attacked in France, too. The German Crusade, according to Riley-Smith, followed the Third. This seems to describe mob action rather than a indulged Crusade. I know some crusades were not much better, but this seems to be unrelated to the millitary campaigns and battles that define the Crusades. It is an important article, but including it in a campaignbox is inconsistent with the treatment these events get from historians. -- Secisek (talk) 04:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've looked through the books I used when I created the original article, and "German crusade" does not appear in reference to these events. I guess I made it up after all :( Adam Bishop (talk) 07:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The First Crusade was made up of three "waves" 1. Peoples Crusade, 2. Princes' Crusade, and the 3. Crusade of 1101 - one of these is a red link and we should try to fix that. -- Secisek (talk) 07:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the way these set of articles were originally designed, the Princes' Crusade was in effect the First Crusade article. Peoples' Crusade and Crusade of 1101 were spun off from it. Wouldn't it be redundant to have a separate Princes' Crusade article? Adam Bishop (talk) 08:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

New material
The massacres of the German Jews seems to be the overall theme of the article. When I find the time, I will add a section about what happened to the Jewish captives after the fall of Jerusalem. I created an article called the Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon which details how these Jews were held ransom (along with their holy books). It is only a stub, but I plan on expanding it in future. Anyway, those that were not ransomed were sold as slaves and transported to southern Italy by sea. Some of these were either drowned on purpose or beheaded. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 04:09, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Speculation re: R1a and R1b haplotypes
I suppose that quite a few R1a and R1b males might have deluged the Jewish people of the Rhineland whilst massacring them; after all, pillage and massacres often come with rape, and so I would not be surprised to find that many a Jewish child of the middle ages was actually sired by some absentee German (including people from Slavic lands) or French soldier, or some drunken peasant. 204.52.215.107 (talk) 19:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Scratch R1b, that's more of a Sephardic haplogroup. R1a1 is a largely Eastern European haplotype and it is supposed to have come into the Jewish population (or the Levite part of it) 1000-600 years ago. The 1st Crusade was 900 years ago. hmm. Suppose some Sorbs migrated to France and Germany and wound up siring people who thought Jewesses were pretty... 204.52.215.107 (talk) 19:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

More "German Crusade"
Steven Runciman uses "German crusade" in his famous book, the title of Chapter 7 is "The German crusade". But notice the word "crusade" - he did not capitalize it - suggesting ir is a descriptive phrase, and not a proper noun (a term of periodisation). He doesn't use it anywhere else in the book. The chapter title is probably somewhat tongue in cheek, written in the wake of WWII and the holocaust. So, this is probably where it entered the popular conscious - another minor source of confusion from Sir Runciman. Fothergill Volkensniff IV (talk) 04:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Genocide
Has any public commentator bothered to describe the 1096 persecutions as a "genocide"? That's what it sounds like to me, Christians looking to systematically kill Jews en masse or convert them, attempting to wipe out their culture. 192.12.88.34 (talk) 20:26, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Technical note
I have merged the talk pages of Pogroms of 1096 and Persecutions of 1096 into one page as it's supposed to be. If you want to move the article please be careful to do it with the move function, and if there's a problem please contact me or another admin. Thanks, Ynhockey (Talk) 20:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME
Two editors have proposed a new name "pogroms of 1096" for this article over recent months. The wp:commonname googlebooks analysis is below: Summary - "persecutions of 1096" is almost seven times more common than "pogroms of 1096".
 * Persecutions of 1096 => 1,630 hits
 * Pogroms of 1096 => 241 hits

Oncenawhile (talk) 20:56, 29 January 2013 (UTC)


 * See WP:GOOGLE, the quality of the sources being used to support a WP:COMMONNAME argument must be considered.   16:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As it stands no case at all has been presented to support the move to "pogroms". The title "Persecutions of 1096" goes all the way back to 2004. The name was changed recently, and Oncenawhile reverted the change. Thus there is clearly not a consensus for the change. The next step is for those that support the change to make their case. Dlv999 (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Dlv999, the link you provided does not actually support your statement. Sorry you're having trouble reviewing the the article's move history, which actually shows it was first created as:
 * German Crusade, 1096
 * and since then it's been:
 * German Crusade of 1096
 * Persecution of Jews in the First Crusade
 * Pogroms of 1096
 * Persecution of Jews in the First Crusade
 * Pogroms of 1096
 * Persecution of Jews in the First Crusade
 * Pogroms of 1096
 * Persecutions of 1096
 * Pogroms of 1096
 * Regardless of the history, as it stands, the article has a dozen high quality sources in it supporting the current name Pogroms of 1096 and none supporting any other. Cheers...   19:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Zad, this, along with what's been going on at other pages including Alexandrian riots, Limerick Pogrom and Crown Heights Riots is totally unacceptable. This whole question of pogrom naming is going to have to be escalated. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Currently I have no opinion this, just wanted to point out that in order to get the actual gbook hits you can't read them off the first page of results (I seriously doubt there are 1630 books on the topic, that's a lot of books). You have to go to the last page of the search.

That gives 56 hits for "Prosecutions" and 54 hits for "Pogroms". Which is much closer and certainly not x7 difference. Volunteer Marek 22:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * As Zad68 points out, the article currently has in it a dozen excellent Reliable Sources supporting the name "Pogroms of 1096", but none in it supporting the new name "Persecutions of 1096". In addition, as Volunteer Marek points out, the actual Gbook hits for "Pogroms of 1096" and "Persecutions of 1096" are essentially identical. I don't see any policy-based reason for moving it to the new name. Jayjg (talk) 02:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The dozen sources you added to support changing the name back are exactly the same as the first few articles which come up if you hit the googlebooks link I added above. Therefore as a random selection they can be assumed to be exactly the same quality as those in the other googlebooks link. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, clicking on the "googlebooks link" in question (Pogroms of 1096) produces ten sources on the first results page, including Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (2009), The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies (2004), Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe (2012), and The Central Franconian Rhyming Bible (2004), all of which use the phrase "Pogroms of 1096", and none of which are used as the dozen sources in this article. Clearly, then, the claim that they "are exactly the same as the first few articles which come up if you hit the googlebooks link" is incorrect. As you did not respond to any of the other issues raised, one must assume that you now concede all points. Jayjg (talk) 02:21, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Volunteer Marek, thanks for that - very interesting.

I've done some more reading around on this to try to find a more common descriptor that is more popular than both of the above. Rhineland massacres appears to be meaningfully more common than other alternatives. Using the method you propose, the results are as follows:
 * 56 hits for "Persecutions of 1096"
 * 54 hits for "Pogroms of 1096"
 * 97 hits for "Rhineland massacres"

Summary - "Rhineland massacres" is almost two times more common than either "pogroms of 1096" or "persecutions of 1096". Oncenawhile (talk) 22:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The second result in your "Rhineland massacres" link refers to two different sets of "Rhineland massacres", those in 1096 and those in 1146. Other sources also refers to multiple sets of massacres; clearly, then the name is ambiguous. Furthermore, the results actually show several names, including "Rhineland massacres", "Rhineland massacres of 1096", "Rhineland massacres during the First Crusade", "Rhineland Massacres of Jews in the First Crusade". The last name in particular is interesting; it's actually the name of a book by David Nirenberg, and two dozen of the results returned are simply other sources that reference Nirenberg's work. Several of the results actually use the term "Pogroms of 1096", referencing Nirenberg's work. This clearly illustrates some of the many fallacies of using raw Google searches to prove points - see also WP:GOOGLE. Jayjg (talk) 02:21, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what the reason is for what now seems like a fishing expedition to change this article's title away from what it currently is to something else, but based on WP:GOOGLE problems with the original proposal, the numbers Marek provided, and the problems with the latest proposal regarding WP:PRECISION (part of WP:TITLE, which is policy), I'm still not seeing a justifiable reason to change the article title.   03:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's another one:
 * 76 hits for "Massacres of 1096"
 * So, based on the information available so far it is an undisputed fact that Rhineland Massacres is the most commonly used name, even adjusting for the repeat references to Nirenberg's work.
 * The current title is the fourth most commonly used.
 * But statistics aside, there is another fundamental problem with the current title - I have not seen a single source which uses "Pogroms of 1096" as a title an/or its capitalised form. Not a single one. All the sources in googlebooks show the word being used in a descriptive sense, none of which chose the name as a title. So apart from being the third fourth commonly found possible name, it actually is never used as a name by any source (that i have seen).
 * However, as Jayjg mentioned above, Rhineland Massacre is used as a title in the essay The Rhineland Massacres of Jews in the First Cmsade Memories Medieval and Modern by David Nirenberg. It is also used a couple of times in its capitalised form in another couple of sources: and . These last two are unrelated to each other and not specifically focused on this period, so they illustrate broad usage of the term in its capitalised form.
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 22:24, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Please respond to the points raised in Zad68's comment of 03:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC) regarding WP:PRECISION and "fishing expeditions". Jayjg (talk) 22:43, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I reviewed the titles of the last 10 books listed in the search result Once cited for "massacres of 1096". I was curious why a book titled The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb would possibly be discussing 11th century European pogroms/massacres so I actually searched inside the last 10 books listed that allowed in-book searches:
 * The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures
 * The devil and the Jews: the medieval conception of the Jew and its relation to modern antisemitism
 * The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
 * With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
 * Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction
 * Antisemitism: the longest hatred
 * Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages
 * A Mediterranean Society: Cumulative Indices
 * Conservative Judaism: The New Century
 * The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple
 * Of these 10, the number of books actually talking about the events covered in this article by the term "massacres of 1096" is: about one or two (probably).  Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages makes a very brief in-passing mention of "The massacres of the First Crusade in 1096..." and Antisemitism: the longest hatred kinds of hints at it with "First Crusade (1096), which led to massacres hitherto..."  From this, I conclude that doing this sort of Google search to support a move argument might not be the best way to go about it.   03:08, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Sigh. Ok, lemme try to slice through the noise here and highlight the essence of the dispute. The thing is that the word "pogrom" generally refers to violence against Jews (though the etymology of the word is more general, but that's neither here nor there). Words like "Persecution" or "Massacre" denote essentially the same thing action-wise but they are much more ambiguous in the sense that they could apply to any particular group. But these *were* instances of violence against Jews. So I do think that the word "Pogroms" in the title is much more appropriate. I see no benefit in diluting the terminology to "Persecutions" or "Massacres". This is also reflected in the gbook searches above where the terms "Persecutions" and "Massacres", being more general search terms, tend to pick up unrelated hits. The only acceptable alternatives I can think of would be titles like "Persecutions of the Jews in 1096" or "Massacres of the Jews in 1096" but the current title is much better at conveying the same information. At the end of the day, the current title of the article captures the subject of the article and there's no need to change it, or for that matter, to waste time arguing about it. Volunteer Marek 03:16, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I do have some problem with the sentence These were new persecutions of the Jews in which peasant crusaders from France and Germany attacked Jewish communities., in particular the "peasant crusaders" part. The pogromist weren't just peasants but mostly knights. In fact, I'd say that editors should forget about arguing about the name of the article and focus on improving the generally sorry state it's in. Volunteer Marek 03:25, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Volunteer Marek, for what it's worth this debate is part of a larger question which has been going on for almost a year at Talk:Pogrom. There are other parallel debates right now at Talk:Alexandrian pogrom, Talk:Limerick Pogrom and Talk:Crown Heights riot.
 * On the article title debate, it's worth noting a statement on this topic by Jayjg at Talk:Pogrom/Archive_2: "All that matters is WP:COMMONNAME, or how the event is typically described by WP:RS." But i'd like to focus on your points because they go right to the heart of the question.
 * After months of wiki-research and debate on the topic (see a detailed inventory of definitions here) I have a different understanding of what "pogrom" generally refers to.
 * There are basically two separate definitions of pogrom. The one you quoted ("generally refers to violence against Jews") with no other criteria, is one of those, and is mentioned by scholars (Henry Abramson wrote that "in mainstream usage the word has come to imply an act of antisemitism" and John Klier writes that "By the twentieth century, the word "pogrom" had become a generic term in English for all forms of collective violence directed against Jews.") But that definition is not used in scholarly works and formal definitions, primarily I suppose because it is too imprecise - it could define anything in all three circles in the venn diagram on the right.
 * The scholarly definitions vary widely, but generally have three characteristics - they involve riots by locals in the same city of the victims, whose intent is to persecute a minority group, and they generally cause deaths.
 * The key reason this event does not qualify under the scholarly definitions is that there were no "riots", and these were no local people attacking their neighbours. They were passing soldiers pillaging and massacring.
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 08:58, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Once, your original-research Venn diagram for "pogrom" is problematic in that it does not mention perhaps the most essential features of a pogrom, which are that it is attack on the already-disenfranchised, and condoned by those in power. That's a pretty serious omission, if you're planning on using that diagram in the future you really should correct that.   20:52, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Zad. I considered the same but the reason i didn't add them in were (1) i couldn't find a way to add them without overcomplicating the diagram, and (2) those factors are often more subjective / difficult to define, whereas for Riot / Massacre / Group Persecution usually those are pretty clear and harder to dispute. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:36, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Another quick point re Volunteer Marek's comments. Walter Bergmann wrote in his work summarising literature on pogroms: "researchers frequently fail to distinguish between pogrom and massacre" and "the differences lie in the fact that massacres are conducted by more highly organized and better armed assailants (often military or police units)... whereas the elements typical to a pogrom [are] a large group of attackers acting on a short-term basis within a local framework, and the destruction and looting of property". If we respect Bergmann's view here, this event is clearly labelled as a "massacre" due to its military nature. Oncenawhile (talk) 12:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Was Bergmann referring specifically to the Pogroms of 1096? No. Please review WP:NOR. Jayjg (talk) 21:45, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Er, nor were Volunteer Marek's comments..... Oncenawhile (talk) 21:48, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Resolution of article name
Per Zad's comment above re the changing titles, consensus for the title of this page has never been found. As per the above discussion, one way to agree the commonname here is via googlebooks. As set out before, the results of this, using VolunteerMarek's methodology, are: Arguments by editors supporting the term "pogrom" have been made to suggest that googlebooks is not the best way to define the common name.
 * 97 hits for "Rhineland massacres"
 * 76 hits for "Massacres of 1096"
 * 56 hits for "Persecutions of 1096"
 * 54 hits for "Pogroms of 1096"

However, no-one has suggested an alternative. In the absence of an alternative way to fairly and dispassionately agree on what the commonname is, surely we have to go with the googlebooks results.

I will wait for a response before changing the name.

Oncenawhile (talk) 12:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Oncenawhile, as several editors have already explained, there are issues with your WP:GOOGLE methodology, high-quality reliable sources support the current name, and there is no consensus to change the article's name. Given that policy does not back the move, nor consensus, any further attempts to change the name will be disruptive. Jayjg (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm also puzzled why a WP:GOOGLE argument is being made again after the problems of this approach were already pointed out. Google counts might work in the cases of many thousands of available good sources and an overwhelming disparity, neither of which are the case here.  The suggestion that a line of argument already proven to be faulty (WP:GOOGLE counts) must be accepted if no other argument is made is flawed and therefore unconvincing.  What is actually true is the reverse:  Wikipedia says that in the absence of a good argument for positive change, no change is to be made.    20:57, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I've read your arguments here, and they seem to boil down to "anything at all, so long as it doesn't use the word pogrom". They are called "Pogroms of 1096" by many scholars, as the article shows, and you haven't given any strong argument that a different name is better. Plot Spoiler (talk) 22:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * To summarise Jayjg's and Zad's views here "we disagree with googlebooks counting" and "we support the name which it was first moved to in October 2012".
 * I note the absence of any constructive suggestion to actually reach a communal agreement here. If you don't like googlebooks, suggest something else. Claiming "consensus" or "statusquo" has no basis in fact.
 * I am adding a tag to this article until this is resolved.
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Those aren't my arguments. Please strike them from your comments. Jayjg (talk) 22:34, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes they are - it's almost word for word what you wrote. What exactly have I misrepresented? Perhaps i am not intelligent enough to understand your comments - please could you explain slowly and clearly. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No, they're not. I make my own arguments; I don't rely on those who disagree with me to make them for me. Please review straw man. Again, per WP:NPA and WP:TPYES, please strike that from your comment. Jayjg (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I will not strike them - I stand by my claim that they are an accurate summary of the content in your comments so far. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Another try - how about this for a fair and dispassionate attempt: Any comments on this? Oncenawhile (talk) 22:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Here is a random googlebooks search for "Jews in 1096". Surely that should come up with a random selection of books which reference this topic. Then take a flick through each of the 73 results. I didn't see any which referred to a pogrom in the search-page-snippet provided (i'm sure many do in the books as a whole), but the snippets did use the words massacre and persecution very commonly.
 * Why are you proposing yet another arbitrary, WP:GOOGLE-based methodology? Jayjg (talk) 22:54, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Why don't you propose a methodology then? Oncenawhile (talk) 23:08, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not proposing a methodology because this appears to be a solution in search of a problem. Per the consensus above, Pogroms of 1096 satisfies WP:COMMONNAME as well as any other name, particularly when one takes into account the many false positive results produced by the proposed WP:GOOGLE-methodology derived names. In addition, as Volunteer Marek points out, the term "Pogrom" is more descriptive and specific, and therefore more helpful to the reader/user of the encyclopedia. Jayjg (talk) 21:53, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * What utter rubbish. It is a minority-usage name and there is no consensus for it. The term pogrom here is misleading, and as i have already said, is POV.
 * I suspect that the reason you aren't proposing a methodology to find the commonname is because you have noticed that there isn't a single non-partisan methodology you can find which puts the word Pogrom as the most common name.
 * Oncenawhile (talk) 22:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Oncenawhile, the Google searches listed above produce similar numbers, and the ones with more "hits" give results that aren't about the "Pogroms of 1096". Zad68 and Jayjg have both pointed this out to you. Volunteer Marek has pointed out why "Pogroms" is a more meaningful name. There doesn't appear to be any real problem with the current name, "Pogroms of 1096", and your response to Jayjg is just a personal attack. My advice is to step back here, and try to solve real problems instead. Plot Spoiler (talk) 22:47, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
 * This comment is just a rehashing of one side of the discussion above and totally ignoring the counterarguments which already refuted them. To be clear, I have already shown that adjusting for those hits doesn't change the numbers in any meaningful way. I have also shown that Volunteer Marek's reasoning was based on WP:OR assumptions which were contrary to the actual sources. So the problem with the name are the same as I have already said - it is a minority usage and it is POV. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:00, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the term pogrom is misleading. It is a word in Russian which specifically refers to riots against Jews in the Russian empire. Better to use a more standard English term like massacre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.138.229.89 (talk) 15:24, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Revert by Plotspoiler
Please explain yourself. Looking at it in the cold light of day, the above discussion is crystal clear. If you have some new facts or sources, please share them with us. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:42, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's crystal clear that you believe your view is correct, but that does not make it correct. Other facts and sources have been presented that do not support your view, and you have no WP:consensus. So stop this long-term WP:edit war you are engaged in. Plot Spoiler (talk) 21:52, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I am still awaiting your reply to the points made in my post of 23:00, 10 March 2013. General hand waving will not achieve a resolution here. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Most common and also most reputable?
In order to try to finish this debate, perhaps we can shift the focus from which is "most common" (which has been established above) to which name is used by "most reputable scholars" on the subject. We need to establish therefore which works on this subject are the most reputable. I have started a list at Pogroms_of_1096. If editors could contribute to this that would be great, otherwise if noone adds to it over a reasonable timeframe we can assume that other sources are perhaps more "tertiary" in nature. Then we can review these sources to consider how they refer to the subject of this article. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:55, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, I have exhausted my powers of finding high quality sources - all now listed in the article. However, as much as I tried I cannot find a single scholarly source which both (1) focuses primary on the events in this article, and (2) uses the term "pogrom" as its main / titular descriptor. Not a single one . So those editors on the other side of this debate could have a try? If nothing is forthcoming after a reasonable period of time, then I will revert Plotspoiler's title change. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:50, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Analysis of references supporting "Pogroms of 1096"
Footnote 1 uses the following refs to support "Pogroms of 1096":
 * Richard S. Levy. Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia Of Prejudice And Persecution, ABC-CLIO, 2005, ISBN 9781851094394. p. 153. => NOT USED AS A TITLE (sole quote is "The known facts about the pogroms of 1096 can be summarized as follows")
 * Christopher Tyerman. God's War: A New History of the Crusades, Harvard University Press, 2006, ISBN 9780674023871, p. 100. => INCORRECT, AS USES PHRASE "RHINELAND POGROMS" (quote is "One of the words employed by Hebrew chroniclers to describe the perpetrators of the Rhineland pogroms of 1096 translates as 'those bearing insignia'"
 * Israel Jacob Yuval. Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, University of California Press, 2008, ISBN 9780520258181, p. 186. => NOT USED AS A TITLE, AND ALSO USES "persecutions of 1096" (p103), "atrocities of 1096" (p102, 106) and "martyrdom of 1096" (p149)
 * Nikolas Jaspert. The Crusades, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 9780415359672, p. 39. INCORRECT, AS ONLY USES PHRASE "JEWISH POGROMS OF 1906"
 * Louis Arthur Berman. The Akedah: The Binding of Isaac, Jason Aronson, 1997, ISBN 9781568218991, p. 92. => NOT USED AS A TITLE (sole quote is "This panegyric of martyrdom reached the Jews of the Rhineland in time to guide their response to the unexpected and terrible pogroms of 1096.")
 * Anna Sapir Abulafia, "Crusades", in Edward Kessler, Neil Wenborn. A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 9780521826921, p. 116. => NOT USED AS A TITLE, ONLY A FOOTNOTE (sole quote is "For a highly controversial suggestion that a causal link should be sought between the ritual murder accusation andknowledge amongstChristians of the ritual slaughter by Jews of their own children during the pogroms of 1096 see I.J.Yuval.")
 * Ian Davies. Teaching the Holocaust: Educational Dimensions, Principles and Practice, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000, ISBN 9780826448514, p. 17. => NOT USED AS A TITLE (sole quote is "The pogroms of 1096 and after marked a decisive shift in antiJewish attitudes in western Europe.")
 * Avner Falk. A Psychoanalytic History of the Jews, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1996, ISBN 9780838636602, p. 410. => INCORRECT, AS USAGE IS QUOTING DAVID BIALE (SEE BELOW)
 * Hugo Slim. Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War, Columbia University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780231700375, p. 47.
 * Richard A. Fletcher. The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, University of California Press, 1999, ISBN 9780520218598, p. 318. => NOT USED AS A TITLE (sole quote is "The pogroms of 1096 came to constitute one of the turning-points in the historical consciousness of Ashkenazi Jewry.")
 * David Biale. Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History. Random House, 2010, ISBN 9780307772534, p. 65. => NOT USED AS A TITLE (sole quote is "For instance, in 1103, following the Crusader pogroms of 1096, the Jews were granted royal protection through the Land Peace (Landfrieden) of the German king.")
 * I. S. Robinson. Henry IV of Germany 1056-1106, Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 9780521545907, p. 318. => NOT USED AS A TITLE (sole quote is "In the light of the concern to protect the Jews which he had shown, especially after the pogroms of 1096, it is likely...")

I will therefore remove these in their guise as supporting the title. They support that authors refer to the event as a pogrom, but NOT that authors entitle the event "Pogroms of 1096".

Oncenawhile (talk) 11:32, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Any remaining support for the current title?
Please speak now or forever hold your peace. Without any policy based support, the title will be reverted shortly. Oncenawhile (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I think Rhineland massacres is indeed more appropriate. The retroactive use of "pogrom" is not correct.GreyShark (dibra) 07:16, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Jew mass suicide
I can't google it but it's a fact that tons of Jews mass suicided in Medieval Germany during teh Crusadesm when the crusaders were passing thru their towns and massacring jews --184.161.152.198 (talk) 22:29, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call it mass suicide. They were taken into the synagogues and in some cases churches, and forced to accept Christianity. Many chose to take their lives in front of the priests and crusaders (in some cases the crusaders were not local, and some were even opposed to the local townspeople). I don't know what it should be called but it is closer to being massacred than to what we usually perceive as committing suicide. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 14:23, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The first sentence doesn't make sense
Too much crammed in. Can a name for edicts over 100 years earlier also cover 1096? Johnbod (talk) 13:54, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

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Someone please add a total estimate of death count
While the actual figure will never be known, it makes sense to give an estimate of total death count so that the scale of these massacre can be easy to understand. 45.116.233.4 (talk) 10:38, 20 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, please add this to the article. 173.88.241.33 (talk) 02:48, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Pre-emptive reactions
The Catholic Church response section is long, and currently growing at a geometric rate. I am not sure when it will become self-aware, but at present it contains recently-added sentences like the following:


 * "The archbishops Adalbero II of Metz, Walthard of Magdeburg and Anno II of Cologne were not enemies of the Jews; they worked on creating safe environments and protecting the rights of the Jews."

This sentence does not make any sense in the context -- these archbishops are not mentioned anywhere else in the article, so it is entirely unclear why they are mentioned here. And there is no suggestion that they were enemies of the Jews, so it is unclear why it is asserted that they were not. The first two died nearly a century before the events discussed in the article, and the third of them died several decades before the events discussed in the article.

Thus this kind of material is entirely out of place in a section entitled "Catholic Church response". There is justification for this article containing a summary explanation of the status and situation of Jews in the Rhineland prior to the 1096 massacres, and also details of the steps taken by Catholics to protect the Jews during the massacres. But this material is currently misplaced and presented with inappropriate weight.

Similar additions concern steps taken by Catholics in 1083 -- again, not relevant in an account of what steps Catholics took regarding the 1096 massacres.

I will be removing this misplaced and misleading material. MPS1992 (talk) 02:55, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

"German Crusade of 1096"
There is a single source (Gilbert) for the alternative name "German Crusade of 1096". Gilbert uses it in all caps as the title of a page but that is not a reason to take it as a name for the event. Every page of Gilbert's book has a title, and only some of them are names. Opening at random, is "Other Zions 1652-1946" a common name for something? (No, it is just a page title.) Unless there is another source for this name, I propose to remove it. Zerotalk 00:49, 27 June 2018 (UTC)


 * The name "German Crusade" comes (like most things) from Steven Runciman. It's the title of chapter 7 of volume 1 of his History of the Crusades. I created this article in 2004, and I remember at one point it was called "German Crusade (1096)" or something similar, so it's very likely that Martin Gilbert got the name from Wikipedia (i.e. it's all my fault!). Usually in crusader historiography, the "German Crusade" is the crusade of 1197. I thought other historians used it for the 1096 massacres as well, but after a quick look, it seems that only Runciman does. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Runciman is certainly a more eminent source for the Crusades than Gilbert. I'm surprised he isn't cited in the article, as he covers the subject quite well. Zerotalk 08:32, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

"goose incident"
i absolutely must know what the "goose incident" is that was mentioned in the last sentence of the "Catholic Church response" section of the article

googling "Albert of Aachen "goose incident"" only shows results that copy this page verbatim.

anyone have any legit answers? Dankdevice (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

answered my own question: removing quotation marks from my google search reveals results! from the wiki page for Count Emicho: "Emicho's army attracted many unusual followers, including a group who worshipped a goose they believed to be filled with the Holy Spirit" Dankdevice (talk) 15:35, 27 May 2021 (UTC)