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. Over a thousand Jews were killed during the First Crusade along the Rhine river, also known as the Rhineland massacres. The Crusaders also arrived in Jerusalem during the First Crusade and massacred many of the city's Jewish inhabitants.

In the early 13th century, Jews were attacked in France and Spain, where the Cistercian Arnold led Crusaders to massacre Jews in Toledo, and in 1236, before the Barons' Crusade, Crusaders forcibly baptized Jews and killed those that resisted in Anjou and Poitou. The Jewish communities of the Rhineland were attacked again in 1421 by Crusaders on their way to attack the Hussites.