Crusade chroniclers framed mass slaughter of enemies as divine judgment

Evidence

The chronicler Raymond d’Aguiliers describes a similar scene, also set in Jerusalem, but at the time of the First Crusade: “[I]n the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.” Fulcher of Chartres puts it more baldly: “If you had been there, your feet would have been stained up to the ankles with the blood of the slain.” In the Caxton Siege, the blood of the vanquished enemy flows freely, as though it were water: “[T]here was so moche blood shedde that the canellys and ruissheauls [little rivers] ronne alle of blood / and alle the stretes of the toun were couerd with dede men” (273.36–274.1). — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 246

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s death/sacrifice interest and to how atrocity gets rhetorically sanctified — parallels the sacrificial logic in Sati and the Royal Tombs. — connects to: Crusade apologists justified the war as divinely authorized collective punishment