Siege of Ma'arra

Siege of Ma'arra
	Part of the First Crusade
	; Capture of the fortress of Ma'arra in the province of Antioch in 1098 by Henri Decaisne
Date	November–December 1098
Location	Ma'arrat Nu'man 35°38′35.99″N36°40′5.99″E / 35.6433306°N 36.6683306°E
Result	Crusader victory
Belligerents
Crusaders	City in the realm of Ridwan of Aleppo
Commanders and leaders
Raymond IV of Toulouse ; Bohemond of Taranto ; Robert II of Flanders	Unknown
Strength
Unknown	Local militia and garrison
Casualties and losses
	About 20,000 civilians killed
	class=notpageimage\| Location within Syria

Last updated February 16, 2024

The siege of Ma'arra occurred in late 1098 in the city of Ma'arrat Nu'man, in what is modern-day Syria, during the First Crusade. It is infamous for the claims of widespread cannibalism committed by the crusaders.

Context

After the crusaders, including Raymond IV of Toulouse and Bohemond of Taranto, successfully led the siege of Antioch, they started to raid the surrounding countryside during the winter months. The crusaders had been ineffective in assessing and protecting their supply lines, which led to widespread hunger and lack of proper equipment within the crusader armies.

In July 1098, Raymond Pilet d'Alès, a knight in the army of Raymond, led an expedition against Ma'arra, an important city on the road south towards Damascus. His troops met a much larger Muslim garrison in the town and they were completely routed with many casualties. For the rest of the summer the crusaders continued their march south and captured many other small towns, and arrived again at Ma'arra in November.

Siege

Around the end of November, thousands of crusaders started to besiege the city. The citizens were at first unconcerned, since Raymond Pilet's expedition had been such a failure, and they taunted the crusaders. The crusaders could also not afford to conduct a lengthy siege, as winter was approaching and they had few supplies, but they were also unable to break through the city's defences, consisting of a deep ditch and strong walls.

The defenders of the city, mostly an urban militia and inexperienced citizens, managed to hold off the attacks for about two weeks. The crusaders sent repeatedly envoys offering terms of surrender that included security of the Arab population's lives and properties in return of the establishment of a Frankish governor of the city.^[1] These terms were rejected. The crusaders spent this time building a siege tower, which allowed them to pour over the walls of the city, while at the same time a group of knights scaled the undefended walls on the other side of the city.

The crusaders occupied the walls on December 11. The Muslims retreated into the city, and both sides prepared to rest for the night, but the poorer crusaders rushed through and plundered Ma'arra. On the morning of December 12, the garrison negotiated with Bohemond, who promised them safe conduct if they surrendered. The Muslims surrendered, but the crusaders immediately began to massacre the population. Meanwhile, Bohemond seized control of the walls and towers while Raymond of Toulouse took control of the interior of the city, continuing their dispute over who would rule conquered territories. The crusaders also began destroying Ma'arra's fortifications, forcing Raymond to finally agree to continue the march south.

Cannibalism

During or after the siege some of the starving crusaders resorted to cannibalism, feeding on the bodies of Muslims. This fact itself is not seriously in doubt, as it is acknowledged by nearly a dozen Christian chronicles written during the twenty years after the Crusade, all of which are based at least to some degrees on eyewitness accounts.^[2] The crusaders' cannibalism is also briefly mentioned in an Arab source, which explains it as due to hunger ("racked by dearth").^[3]

There is conflicting evidence on when exactly and why the cannibalism happened. Some sources state that enemies were eaten during the siege, others (a slight majority) state that it happened after the city had been conquered.^[4] Another source of tension exists regarding its motives – was it practised secretly due to famine and lack of food, as some sources suggest, or publicly in front of the enemies in order to shock and frighten them, as others imply?^[5]

After the fall of the city, the crusaders stayed there for about a month before continuing their march to Jerusalem, while their leaders debated how to divide the lands they had conquered.^[6] One group of chronicles suggests that the cannibalism occurred after the end of the siege and was entirely motivated by hunger. The earliest text in this tradition, the Gesta Francorum , states that because of great deprivations after the siege, "Some cut the flesh of dead bodies into strips and cooked them for eating." Peter Tudebode's chronicle gives a similar description, though adding that only Muslims were eaten.^[7] Several other works that are partially based on the Gesta Francorum include similar accounts, likewise stating that only Muslims or "Turks" were consumed. Only of them says that "human flesh was being traded openly", while the others imply that it was only eaten discreetly, out of sight.^[8]

Raymond of Aguilers, who seems to have been present at Ma'arra, likewise states that the cannibalism happened after the siege and "in the midst of famine", but adds that human flesh was consumed in public and "with gusto" rather than secretly and shamefully. He adds that these spectacles shocked the Muslims who were terrified by the resolution and cruelty of the crusaders – which is somewhat at odds with his account that these events happened after the fall of the city, when all Muslims in the vicinity were either dead or enslaved.^[9]

Three other accounts, by Fulcher of Chartres (who was a participant of the Crusade though not personally present at Ma'arra), Albert of Aachen and Ralph of Caen (both of whom based their accounts on interviews with participants) state that the cannibalism happened during the siege and suggest that it was a public spectacle rather than a shameful, hidden episode.^[10] Ralph states that "a lack of food compelled them to make a meal of human flesh, that adults were put in the stewpot, and that [children] were skewered on spits. Both were cooked and eaten." He asserts that he heard this "from the very perpetrators of this shame", that is, from some of the cannibals themselves.^[11] Albert writes "that the Christians, in the face of the scarcity about which you have heard, did not fear to eat ... the bodies, cooked in fire, not only of the Saracens or Turks they had killed, but also of the dogs that they had caught", thus cynically implying that eating dogs was worse than eating Muslims.^[12] Fulcher states that many crusaders "savagely filled their mouths" with cooked "pieces from the buttocks of the Saracens" which they had cut from the bodies of enemies while the siege was still ongoing.^[13]

While multiple sources concur on the fact of the cannibalism, both its timing and its motives are thus in doubt. Another issue is whether such acts were limited to Ma'arra or happened also elsewhere during the First Crusade, as several accounts suggest. Some sources describe cannibalism several months earlier, during the siege of Antioch.^[14] The Byzantine princess Anna Komnene ascribes it to an even earlier period, the People's Crusade, and describes it in a way similar to Ralph of Caen: "they cut in pieces some of the babies, impaled others on wooden spits, and roasted them over a fire".^[15]

Several medieval interpretations of the cannibalism during the Crusade, by Guibert of Nogent, William of Tyre, and in the Chanson d'Antioche , interpret it as an deliberate act of psychological warfare, "intended to strike fear in the enemy". This implies it must have happened during rather than after the siege, "while there were still Muslims alive to witness it and to feel the horror that was its intended by-product".^[16]

In concluding his discussion of the various accounts of the cannibalism, historian Jay Rubenstein notes that the chroniclers clearly felt discomfort and tried to downplay what had happened, hence tending to give only part of the facts (but without agreeing on which part and interpretation to give).^[17] He also notes that the fact that only Muslims were eaten is at odds with hunger as sole or primary motive – presumably, desperate starving people would not have cared much about the religion of those they consumed.^[18] He concludes that Ma'arra was probably only "the most memorable instance of what was likely a periodic response to famine", namely cannibalism, and that it went "beyond poor and hungry people eating from the dead" in secret. He rather supposes that "some of the soldiers must have recognized its potential utility [as a weapon of terror] and, hoping to drive the defenders into a quick surrender, made a spectacle of the eating, and made sure that Muslims were the only ones eaten."^[17]

Historian Thomas Asbridge states that, while the "cannibalism at Marrat is among the most infamous of all the atrocities perpetrated by the First Crusaders", it nevertheless had "some positive effects on the crusaders' short-term prospects". Reports and rumours of their brutality in Ma'arra and Antioch convinced "many Muslim commanders and garrisons that the crusaders were bloodthirsty barbarians, invincible savages who could not be resisted". Accordingly, many of them decided to "accept costly and humiliating truces with the Franks rather than face them in battle".^[19]

Controversy about the role of the Tafurs

Some chroniclers as well as various later sources blamed the cannibalism at Ma'arra at the Tafurs, a group of crusaders who followed strict oaths of poverty. In recent times, several scholars continued to identify the Tafurs as the chief perpetrators of cannibalism.^[20] Guibert of Nogent was the first to attribute cannibal acts specifically to the Tafurs, at the same time downplaying their significance and declaring that they happened – if at all – only in secret.^[21] In the later Chanson d'Antioche, however, the Tafurs reappear as fanatics who "roast Saracen bodies on spits just outside Antioch's walls", shocking the defenders.^[22] Rubenstein concludes that a desire of some chroniclers "to blame the poor for the cannibalism ... led them to create the Tafur mythology"^[23] and that this mythology flourished in later times because it helped isolate the unpleasant memories of the crusader cannibalism from the armed, heroic crusaders themselves, instead squarely blaming it on a group of poor, unarmed helpers.^[24]

Among modern historians, Amin Maalouf is probably the best known who upheld the Tafur thesis:

The inhabitants of the Ma'arra region witnessed behaviour during that sinister winter that could not be accounted for by hunger. They saw, for example, fanatical Franj, the Tafurs, roam through the country-side openly proclaiming that they would chew the flesh of the Saracens and gathering around their nocturnal camp-fires to devour their prey.^[25]

Maalouf also notes that the events at Ma'arra helped to shape a very negative image of the crusaders in Arab eyes. "For three days they put people to the sword, killing more than a hundred thousand people", one Arab chronicler wrote. While this was widely exaggerated, as the whole city's population had probably been less than ten thousand, it indicates an amount of violence that deeply shocked the Muslim world, while the "barely imaginable fate" of the bodies of victims – to serve as food for the conquerors – was an even deeper shock. After these events, the "Franj" frequently appear in Arab and Turkish sources as brutal "beasts" and "anthropophagi".^[26]

Maalouf's argument has come under criticism by other scholars. Rubenstein agrees with him that "Arab historians do remember Ma'arra as the scene of a horrific massacre", but he criticizes Maalouf's claim that "oral tradition" preserved the cannibalistic horrors among the Arabs as "probably an argumentative sleight of hand", pointing out that it were Christian rather than Arab chroniclers who recorded and documented the cannibalism – and that it were some of them, not Arabs, who specifically blamed the Tafurs.^[27] Carine Bourget agrees with Maalouf that the tendency of major 20th-century accounts of the crusades to downplay or altogether omit the cannibal episode is problematic,^[28] but she reproaches him for engaging in a "rewriting of history" of another kind, by not mentioning the single Arab source that mentions the cannibalism and explains it as due to hunger, in order to strengthen his "fanaticism" conjecture.^[3]

Related Research Articles

Human cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal. The meaning of "cannibalism" has been extended into zoology to describe animals consuming parts of individuals of the same species as food.

The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baldwin I of Jerusalem</span> First count of Edessa (r. 1098–1100) and first king of Jerusalem (r. 1100–1118)

Baldwin I was the first count of Edessa from 1098 to 1100 and king of Jerusalem from 1100 to his death in 1118. He was the youngest son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Ida of Lorraine and married a Norman noblewoman, Godehilde of Tosny. He received the County of Verdun in 1096, but he soon joined the crusader army of his brother Godfrey of Bouillon and became one of the most successful commanders of the First Crusade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Godfrey of Bouillon</span> Duke of Low Lorraine and crusader (1060–1100)

Godfrey of Bouillon was a pre-eminent leader of the First Crusade, and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100, although he avoided the title of king, preferring that of prince (princeps) and Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, or Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre. He was the second son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Lord of Bouillon, from his mother's inheritance, in 1076. In 1087 Emperor Henry IV confirmed him as Duke of Lower Lorraine, a reward for his support during the Great Saxon Revolt. Along with his brothers Eustace III and Baldwin of Boulogne, Godfrey joined the First Crusade in 1096. He took part in actions at Nicaea, Dorylaeum, and Antioch, before playing a key role during the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. When Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse declined the offer to become ruler of the new kingdom, Godfrey accepted the role and secured his kingdom by defeating the Fatimids at Ascalon a month later, bringing the First Crusade to an end. He died in July 1100 and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin as King of Jerusalem.

Imad al-Din Zengi, also romanized as Zangi, Zengui, Zenki, and Zanki, was a Turkoman atabeg, who ruled Mosul, Aleppo, Hama, and, later, Edessa. He was the namesake of the Zengid dynasty.

The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities that existed in the Levant from 1098 to 1291. Following the principals of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. Situated on the Eastern Mediterranean, the four states were, in order from north to south: the County of Edessa (1098–1150), the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), the County of Tripoli (1102–1289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291). The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, the State of Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern writers use the term "Outremer" as a synonym, derived from the French word for overseas.

The siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade lasted for one month and eight days, from 7 June 1099 to 15 July 1099. It was carried out by the Crusader army, which successfully captured Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate and subsequently founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Having returned the city and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Christian rule, the siege was the final major armed engagement of the First Crusade, which had been proclaimed in 1095 to recover the Holy Land for the Christians in the context of the Muslim conquest. A number of eyewitness accounts of the battle were recorded, with the most quoted events being derived from the anonymous Latin-language chronicle Gesta Francorum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siege of Antioch</span> 1097–98 invasion of Seljuk-held Antioch during the First Crusade

The siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098, on the crusaders' way to Jerusalem through Syria. Two sieges took place in succession. The first siege, by the crusaders against the city held by the Seljuk Empire, lasted from 20 October 1097 to 3 June 1098. The second siege, of the crusader-held city by a Seljuk relieving army, lasted three weeks in June 1098, leading to the Battle of Antioch in which the crusaders defeated the relieving army led by Kerbogha. The crusaders then established the Principality of Antioch, ruled by Bohemond of Taranto.

The Battle of Ascalon took place on 12 August 1099 shortly after the capture of Jerusalem, and is often considered the last action of the First Crusade. The crusader army led by Godfrey of Bouillon defeated and drove off a Fatimid army, securing the safety of Jerusalem.

Maarat al-Numan, also known as al-Ma'arra, is a city in northwestern Syria, 33 km (21 mi) south of Idlib and 57 km (35 mi) north of Hama, with a population of about 58,008 before the Civil War. In 2017, it was estimated to have a population of 80,000, including several displaced by fighting in neighbouring towns. It is located on the highway between Aleppo and Hama and near the Dead Cities of Bara and Serjilla.

The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Christian Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these military expeditions are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to reconquer Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which resulted in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of military campaigns were organised, providing a focal point of European history for centuries. Crusading declined rapidly after the 15th century.

Child cannibalism or fetal cannibalism is the act of eating a child or fetus. Children who are eaten or at risk of being eaten are a recurrent topic in myths, legends, and folktales from many parts of the world. False accusations of the murder and consumption of children were made repeatedly against minorities and groups considered suspicious, especially against Jews as part of blood libel accusations.

Cannibalism, the act of eating human flesh, is a recurring theme in popular culture, especially within the horror genre, and has been featured in a range of media that includes film, television, literature, music and video games. Cannibalism has been featured in various forms of media as far back as Greek mythology. The frequency of this theme has led to cannibal films becoming a notable subgenre of horror films. The subject has been portrayed in various different ways and is occasionally normalized. The act may also be used in media as a means of survival, an accidental misfortune, or an accompaniment to murder. Examples of prominent artists who have worked with the topic of cannibalism include William Shakespeare, Voltaire, Bret Easton Ellis, and Herschell Gordon Lewis.

There is near universal agreement that some Mesoamericans practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, but there is no scholarly consensus as to its extent.

Raymond Pilet (1075–1120), the only child of Bernard I Pilet of Narbonne and his wife, whose name is unknown. Seigneur of Alès. Bernard was the son of Raymond II, Viscount of Narbone from 1066 to 1067. The name “pilet” refers to a fur that the nobility wore over their cuirass and coats-of-arms. Raymond distinguished himself as a combatant during the First Crusade.

The Battle of Antioch (1098) was a military engagement fought between the Christian forces of the First Crusade and a Muslim coalition led by Kerbogha, atabeg of Mosul. Kerbogha's goal was to reclaim Antioch from the Crusaders and affirm his position as a regional power.

The Battle of the Lake of Antioch took place on 9 February 1098 during the First Crusade. As the Crusaders were besieging Antioch, word reached the Crusader camp that a large relief force led by Radwan, the Seljuq ruler of Aleppo, was on the way. Bohemond of Taranto gathered all remaining horses and marched in the night to ambush the Muslim army. After several successful cavalry charges, the Crusader knights routed the numerically superior Muslim army, forcing Radwan to retreat back to Aleppo.

The timeline of the Principality of Antioch is a chronological list of events of the history of the Principality of Antioch.

The Tafurs were a group of Christian participants of the First Crusade. Zealots following strict oaths of poverty, they are said to have committed acts of cannibalism during the siege of Antioch or the siege of Ma'arra.

References

↑ Asbridge, Thomas (2017). "Knowing the Enemy: Latin Relations with Islam at the Time of the First Crusade". In Housley, Norman (ed.). Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, Presented to Malcolm Barber. London: Routledge. Ch. 2. ISBN 978-1-351-92392-7.
↑ Rubenstein, Jay (2008). "Cannibals and Crusaders". French Historical Studies. 31 (4): 526, 537. doi:10.1215/00161071-2008-005.
1 2 Bourget, Carine (2006). "The Rewriting of History in Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes". Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature. 30 (2, Article 3): 269. doi: 10.4148/2334-4415.1633 . Archived from the original on 19 July 2018.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 537.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 533, 535, 541.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 526.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 530–531.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 532–533.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 534–535.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 534–536.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 536.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 535.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 534.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 537–538.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 538–539.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 539–542.
1 2 Rubenstein 2008, p. 550.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 529.
↑ Asbridge, Thomas (2004). The First Crusade: A New History . New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 274–275. ISBN 978-0-19-517823-4.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 526–527.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 539–540.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 541.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 530.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, pp. 540, 551–552.
↑ Maalouf, Amin (1984). The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. London: Al Saqi Books. p. 39. ISBN 0-86356-113-6.
↑ Maalouf 1984, pp. 38–39.
↑ Rubenstein 2008, p. 527.
↑ Bourget 2006, pp. 268 and 282 (note 4).