Crusades

The Crusades were religious wars initiated by Pope Urban II in 1095. The Crusaders were composed of Christians and they massacred and forced Jews to convert to Christianity in multiple towns and destroyed the houses and synagogues of the Jews during the Crusades. Crusaders persecuted, forcefully converted, forcefully baptized, and killed Jews in Germany, France, Austria, and Bohemia during the First and Second Crusades, and Crusaders of the Third Crusade killed Jews in Austria, Germany, and England. The killing of Jews during the First Crusade along the Rhine river is known as the Rhineland massacres. The Crusaders also arrived at Jerusalem during the First Crusade and massacred many of the city's Jewish inhabitants.

In 1236, before the Barons' Crusade, Crusaders forcibly baptized Jews and killed those that resisted in Anjou and Poitou. Crusaders on their way to attack the Hussites attacked Jewish communities of Rhineland in 1421.