The mainstream armies which he inspired did not behave as bestially as those raised by a charismatic preacher called Peter the Hermit. As they gathered in the cities of the Rhineland in 1096, they perpetrated Christianity’s first large-scale massacres of Jews, since this was an identifiable group of non-Christians more accessible than Muslims to Western Europeans spoiling for a fight, and generally not able to put up much resistance. It would not be the last time that recruiting for Crusades led to such atrocities.
