According to a letter by the biblical scholar and Church father Saint Jerome, violent outsiders plundered the city of Mainz, massacring thousands of churchgoers in the process. They besieged and reduced Worms, and ran riot in Reims, Amiens, Arras, Thérouanne, Tournai, Speyer, Strasbourg, Lyon, and Narbonne. “Those which the sword spares without, famine ravages within,” wrote Saint Jerome.
