Cannibal Crusaders

Reports from the First Crusade brought tales of victorious Christian soldiers eating dead bodies.

The Siege of Antioch, from the Chronicle of William of Tyre, 14th century. Heritage Images/TopFoto.

In September 1099 a letter addressed to Pope Paschal II sent from Latakia, in present-day Syria, recounted a number of important events taking place during the First Crusade. As well as Latin Christian victories, it described moments of suffering and struggle – and two occasions in which crusaders had turned cannibal.

The first incident took place at Antioch. The Christian army was so weakened, having besieged the city for a number of months, that the letter – attributed to Archbishop Daimbert of Pisa, and two of the First Crusade’s leaders, Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Godfrey of Bouillon – recorded how the Christians ‘could scarcely refrain from eating human flesh’. The second occurred following the sieges of al-Bāra and Ma‘arrat al-Nu‘mān, during which time famine hit the army and ‘the Christian people’ were so desperate that they ‘ate the putrid bodies’ of Muslims. The accusation was shocking: according to the letter – one of the earliest Latin Christian sources for the First Crusade – at times of starvation, God’s chosen people were capable of cannibalism.

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