As far crusade:
First Crusade: 1096.
The undisciplined mobs accompanying the first three Crusades attacked the Jews in Germany, France, and England, and put many of them to death, leaving behind for centuries strong feelings of ill will on both sides. The social position of the Jews in western Europe was distinctly worsened by the Crusades, and legal restrictions became frequent during and after them. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Innocent III., and formed the turning-point in the medieval history of the Jews.
Second Crusade: 1145-47.
During the preparations for the Second Crusade a narrow-minded monk named Radulph preached the Cross in the Rhine valley, and declared that the Jews should be slain as the enemies of the Christian religion.
The Jews were expelled from Magdeburg and Halle. Bernard went to Germany to preach the Cross, and met the monk Radulph in open disputation at Mayence in the beginning of November, 1146, but failed to influence the people in favor of the Jews. He accordingly addressed a letter to the peoples of western Christendom, protesting against the persecution of the Jews. Notwithstanding this, when the crusaders came to Würzburg they slew the rabbi, Isaac ben Eliakim, and about twenty-one men, women, and children, whose bodies were buried by the bishop in his garden. This was ultimately purchased by Hezekiah, the brother of the rabbi, as a graveyard for the Jews (see Würzburg).
Third Crusade: 1189-90.
At the coronation on Sept. 3, 1189, of Richard I., before he started for the Third Crusade, a severe riot occurred, and after he had left the country the crusaders who were preparing to follow him attacked, with the aid of the populace, the Jews at Lynn, Stamford (March 7), Bury St. Edmunds (March 18), Colchester, Thetford, and Ospringe. The chief tragedy, however, occurred at York on the night of March 16, 1190, when 150 Jews of all ages, headed by Rabbi Yom-Tob of Joigny, immolated themselves to escape slaughter or baptism (see York).
Results:
Before the Crusades the Jews had practically a monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connection between Europe and the East brought about by the Crusades raised up a class of merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onward restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent (Höniger, in “Zeit. Gesch. Juden Deutsch.” i. 94 et seq.). The religious zeal fomented by the Crusades burned as fiercely against the Jews as enemies of Christ as against the Moslems.
Thus both economically and socially the Crusades were disastrous for European Jews.
(Bibliography:
First and Second Crusades- Neubauer and Stern, Hebräische Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen Während der Krcuzzüge, Berlin, 1892;
Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches;
Third Crusade- Jacobs, Jews of Angevin England, pp. 99, 134, 385-392. The above account follows mainly Aronius, Regesten, pp. 78-94, 104-116, in preference to Grätz, Gesch. vi. 82-95.)
