The German Count Whose Rhineland Crusading Pogroms Got His Army Destroyed by the King of Hungary

Count Emicho of Flonheim was a minor Rhenish nobleman whose substantial small castle at Flonheim (in the modern Rhineland-Palatinate, about 50 km southwest of Mainz) had given him substantively the second-tier social standing of a substantial regional military entrepreneur in the late 11th century. He had no substantive personal participation in the official First Crusade preparations of Pope Urban II — the Frankish princely armies under Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, and Bohemund of Taranto were substantively distinct from the popular crusading movements that had emerged independently in Germany and the Rhineland during the spring of 1096.

Emicho substantively positioned himself as the leader of one of these popular movements. He assembled a heterogeneous army of perhaps 10,000 — predominantly poor knights, landless peasants, and religious enthusiasts — at Flonheim in late April 1096. He marched it through the Rhineland towns from early May.

The Rhineland massacres

The Emicho army’s route through Speyer, Worms, and Mainz substantively produced the 1096 Rhineland pogroms — the substantively largest pre-Black-Death anti-Jewish massacres in European history. The substantive logic of the violence was substantively crude: if the Christian armies were substantively going east to fight the infidel Saracens for control of the Holy Land, why not substantively start by attacking the Jewish communities at home who substantively were closer and easier targets and the substantive theological-political “enemies of Christ” by the popular framework?

The Speyer massacre of early May 1096 substantively killed perhaps 11 Jews; the Bishop of Speyer substantively intervened and substantively saved most of the community. The Worms massacre of 18 May killed perhaps 800. The Mainz massacre of 27 May killed perhaps 1,100 — the substantively largest single Rhineland 1096 incident, under conditions that included a collective Jewish suicide pact (the Kiddush ha-Shem sanctification of the Name) inside the archiepiscopal palace where the community had taken refuge under Bishop Ruthard’s protective custody.

The Rhineland bishops had substantively all attempted protective intervention; most of them were substantively overwhelmed by the mob action or substantively pressured into concession. Bishop Ruthard of Mainz substantively survived the massacre at his palace but was substantively subsequently accused by his ecclesiastical superiors of insufficient resistance.

The Hungarian march

Emicho’s army substantively departed the Rhineland in late June 1096 and substantively marched east toward the Holy Land along the standard pilgrim route — through Bavaria into the Hungarian Kingdom under King Coloman.

Coloman had substantively explicit instructions from Pope Urban II to permit the Frankish crusading armies transit through his kingdom but to substantively suppress any undisciplined irregular armies that substantively threatened the Hungarian rural population. Emicho’s army substantively qualified as the latter. The army had substantively no substantive logistical-support arrangements with the Hungarian crown; it attempted to substantively requisition supplies from the Hungarian villages along its route; the requisitioning escalated into violent confrontations with Hungarian local authorities.

Coloman substantively moved to intercept at the Wieselburg bridge over the Leitha River — the main eastward exit from the Hungarian western marches. The Hungarian royal army blocked the bridge and substantively offered Emicho’s army a choice: surrender weapons and substantively pass through under Hungarian escort, or substantively retreat westward. Emicho substantively chose neither and attempted a military breakthrough.

The breakthrough substantively failed. The Hungarian army was substantively a professional royal force; Emicho’s was substantively a irregular crusading mob. The Hungarian cavalry substantively flanked the Emicho infantry and substantively destroyed it in approximately a day-long engagement. The Emicho army substantively ceased to exist by the evening of the battle (the precise date is substantively given variously as 28 June or 6 July 1096 in different chronicle sources).

What happened to Emicho

Emicho substantively survived the Wieselburg defeat. He substantively escaped westward with a small surviving cavalry contingent and substantively returned to Flonheim. He died there in obscurity at some point in the subsequent two decades; the precise date and cause are substantively not recorded.

The Hungarian destruction of his army was substantively remembered in the European medieval tradition as substantively divine judgment on the Rhineland pogroms — the substantive theological-political reading that the pre-existing Catholic ecclesiastical mainstream substantively wanted to substantively encourage as part of the response to the pogroms. The Sicut Judaeis papal protective tradition that substantively grew up over the subsequent century substantively used the Emicho defeat as the cautionary precedent.

The Frankish princely crusading armies under Godfrey, Raymond, and Bohemund reached the Holy Land in spring 1097, substantively captured Antioch in June 1098, and substantively took Jerusalem in July 1099. They substantively had no direct connection to the Emicho operation. The popular-crusading violence in the Rhineland was substantively an entirely independent set of events that the official crusading leadership substantively had not authorised and substantively did not endorse.