Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,995
Christian Cannibals!
We are at the end of the 11th century.
On their way to the reconquest of Jerusalem for Christianity, a detachment of Christian fighters appears under the command of Raymond of Toulouse during this first crusade ...
... and Robert of Flanders ...
... on November 27, 1098 in front of the fortified city of Maarat an-Numan in today's Syria ...:
Since they cannot take the city in the first onslaught, they begin a siege ...:
But only after reinforcements under Bohemond of Taranto ...
... the storming of Maarat an-Numan succeeds on December 12th 1098 ...:
... ad maiorem dei gloriam!
So it is - sober and abbreviated - in the history books.
What is usually NOT there is this:
Since the city refused to surrender before the first assault on its walls began, it will be cleared for looting according to European wartime custom!
The Christian fighters go much further!
Without exception, all male residents of Maarat an-Numan - around 20,000 people according to ancient sources - are murdered.
All women and children - that may have been as many or even more! - are deported into slavery.
However, it is not the fact of this massacre itself that brings Maarat an-Numan to notoriety, but the accompanying circumstances:
Because when the city is sacked, the conquerors do not find what they are looking for most: Larger food supplies, because the crusader army is starving!
In an old - Christian! - Chronicle states:
“While the princes were discussing Rugia, the army in Ma’arat en-Numan took action themselves. It was near starvation. All the food in the area had been used up; Cannibalism seemed the only way out. "
Many of the murdered are consumed. The said chronicle of the Frankish chronicler Tankred Raoul de Caen ...
... doesn't shy away from details:
"Ours cooked the adult heathen in pots and put the children on skewers to devour them grilled."
After everyone has had their fill, Archbishop Daimbert of Pisa sits down (on the fresco on the right!) ...
... Godfrey of Bouillon and Raimund von Toulouse and write a letter to the Pope in which they ask for absolution for their deeds!
Not because of the innocent murdered, not because of the enslaved women and children (both were okay for the church, they were only infidels and generally "deus vult!"), but because of the consumption of Muslims - because the consumption of "unbelievers" could damage their Christian souls!
The letter has been preserved (the Church has a long memory!)!
Extracts:
"We were soon exposed to such a cruel famine that some of ours, in desperation, seemed not far from a diet on human flesh. It would take too long to give a record of how we suffered from that cause had."
(...)
"A terrible famine that befell our army made it necessary to feed on the corpses of the Saracens, which were already decaying."
(...)
“The poor among our pilgrims had begun to dissect the bodies of the pagans to find the gold coins hidden in their stomachs; others, tormented by hunger, cut their meat into pieces and cooked it to eat. "
The image of the "Christian" crusader as a fanatical cannibal left a lasting impression in the Muslim world (even more than the conquest of Jerusalem!) And shaped the image of the Orientals of the western world for centuries.
When the Turk Mehmet Ali Agca ...
... tried to murder Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981 on the Holy Ghostfield, oh no, that's in Hamburg, rather on St. Peter's Square in Rome ...
... he justified his act with the incidents in Maarat an-Numan in 1098.
The Arab world also has a long memory ...
We are at the end of the 11th century.
On their way to the reconquest of Jerusalem for Christianity, a detachment of Christian fighters appears under the command of Raymond of Toulouse during this first crusade ...
... and Robert of Flanders ...
... on November 27, 1098 in front of the fortified city of Maarat an-Numan in today's Syria ...:
Since they cannot take the city in the first onslaught, they begin a siege ...:
But only after reinforcements under Bohemond of Taranto ...
... the storming of Maarat an-Numan succeeds on December 12th 1098 ...:
... ad maiorem dei gloriam!
So it is - sober and abbreviated - in the history books.
What is usually NOT there is this:
Since the city refused to surrender before the first assault on its walls began, it will be cleared for looting according to European wartime custom!
The Christian fighters go much further!
Without exception, all male residents of Maarat an-Numan - around 20,000 people according to ancient sources - are murdered.
All women and children - that may have been as many or even more! - are deported into slavery.
However, it is not the fact of this massacre itself that brings Maarat an-Numan to notoriety, but the accompanying circumstances:
Because when the city is sacked, the conquerors do not find what they are looking for most: Larger food supplies, because the crusader army is starving!
In an old - Christian! - Chronicle states:
“While the princes were discussing Rugia, the army in Ma’arat en-Numan took action themselves. It was near starvation. All the food in the area had been used up; Cannibalism seemed the only way out. "
Many of the murdered are consumed. The said chronicle of the Frankish chronicler Tankred Raoul de Caen ...
... doesn't shy away from details:
"Ours cooked the adult heathen in pots and put the children on skewers to devour them grilled."
After everyone has had their fill, Archbishop Daimbert of Pisa sits down (on the fresco on the right!) ...
... Godfrey of Bouillon and Raimund von Toulouse and write a letter to the Pope in which they ask for absolution for their deeds!
Not because of the innocent murdered, not because of the enslaved women and children (both were okay for the church, they were only infidels and generally "deus vult!"), but because of the consumption of Muslims - because the consumption of "unbelievers" could damage their Christian souls!
The letter has been preserved (the Church has a long memory!)!
Extracts:
"We were soon exposed to such a cruel famine that some of ours, in desperation, seemed not far from a diet on human flesh. It would take too long to give a record of how we suffered from that cause had."
(...)
"A terrible famine that befell our army made it necessary to feed on the corpses of the Saracens, which were already decaying."
(...)
“The poor among our pilgrims had begun to dissect the bodies of the pagans to find the gold coins hidden in their stomachs; others, tormented by hunger, cut their meat into pieces and cooked it to eat. "
The image of the "Christian" crusader as a fanatical cannibal left a lasting impression in the Muslim world (even more than the conquest of Jerusalem!) And shaped the image of the Orientals of the western world for centuries.
When the Turk Mehmet Ali Agca ...
... tried to murder Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981 on the Holy Ghostfield, oh no, that's in Hamburg, rather on St. Peter's Square in Rome ...
... he justified his act with the incidents in Maarat an-Numan in 1098.
The Arab world also has a long memory ...
