Emicho was a count in the Rhineland in the late 11th century. He is also commonly referred to as Emich of Flonheim, and not to be confused with Bishop Embricho of Würzburg, often mistakenly called Embricho of Leiningen. The Count Emicho from the Hebrew Chronicles was the Count of Flonheim. He is often mistaken for Count Emicho of Leiningen, who was not involved in any of the Crusades but did in fact live during this time period. In 1096, he was the leader of the Rhineland massacres (sometimes referred to as the "German Crusade of 1096") which were a series of mass murders of Jews that took place during the People's Crusade.
First Crusade
The original idea for the First Crusade that had been preached by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 had already turned into a much different popular movement, the People's Crusade, led by Peter the Hermit. Peter's preaching of the Crusade spread much more quickly than the official versions of Urban's call. Peter's version influenced Emicho, who spread his own story that Christ had appeared to him. Infused with the teachings of the Gospel of Luke he felt chosen to fulfill the "end of times" prophecy. Emicho envisioned that he would march on Constantinople and overcome the forces there, taking over the title of "last World Emperor" in accordance with canonical prophetic tradition. All Christian armies, Latin and Greek, would then unite and march to seize Jerusalem from the Saracens thus prompting the Second Coming and denouement with the Antichrist. Inspired by such exulting promises, a few thousand Franks and Germans merged and marched east in April 1096.
Followers
Emicho's army attracted many unusual followers, including a group who worshipped a goose they believed to be filled with the Holy Spirit (see Women in the Crusades). The army included noblemen and knights such as Drogo Count of Nesle, Hartmann I, Count of Dillingen-Kyburg, Thomas, Lord of Marle and La Fère and Count of Amien, and William the Carpenter, Viscount of Milun. This contradicts the often repeated narrative that Emicho's army was mostly composed of peasants and burghers who were ignorant and instinctively prejudiced against Jews, mostly for economic reasons. Instead, there were a number of relatively educated and wealthy men, likely accompanied by clerics, in Emicho's army who would have known that forced conversions were forbidden according to the tenets of the Church. The violence of the Rhineland massacres cannot be explained away under the assumption that the army was mostly composed of ignorant and provincial peasants.
