The First Crusade: An Analysis

The First Crusade had many parties involved like the Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Byzantine citizens. From these parties, Muslims and Christians had both unfavorable views of each other and antagonistic relationships. The relationship between the Christians and Jews was one of the killer and killed and the Jews reacted with dread, terror, and resentment. The Byzantine emperor considered the Christians family and considered the thought of killing them in battle “fratricide” . During the First Crusade, every different religion involved, such as the Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Byzantines considered other groups their enemy, therefore, all of these people had contradicting perspectives and accounts on the First Crusade especially the victors. …show more content…
Simson’s account shows his loathing of the Christian Crusaders but he provides a list of martyrs which helps to support his account. Al-Athir’s account describes their loss in the First Crusade, is more believable than the Fulcher’s account, and is supported by Simson’s and Comnena’s accounts. Comnena’s account shows a violent side of the Christians, and that they attacked their own fellow Christians. Fulcher’s account has many inconsistencies, both in his views regarding the Crusade and the reality as well as his account versus the other three accounts. Fulcher says that the Crusade was fought for God, but in the other accounts as well as his own he shows that the Christian Crusaders were greedy. The Christians even “split open the bellies of those they had just slain in order to extract from the intestines the coins” . This invalidates the belief that the Christians fought for God alone. The victors of the First Crusade were the Christians, and yet the Christian accounting of the event has the most disparagies, from the purpose to how many were really killed. The victors have different account of history than the defeated, the victims, and even those of a