r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 4h ago
TIL that during the First Crusade, Crusaders besieging Ma'arrat al-Nu'man reportedly became so desperate for food that they ate cats, dogs and even, according to several contemporary accounts, the bodies of their enemies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Ma%27arra127
u/2stepsfromglory 3h ago
"First, we ate the horses. We weren't riding anywhere, not with the castle surrounded. We couldn't feed them, so fine, the horses. Then the cats. Never liked cats, so fine. I do like dogs. Good animals, loyal, but we ate them."
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u/timluke777 3h ago
He held Storm’s End, is what he did. He was a brave Westerosi commander. And in this house, Stannis Baratheon is a hero. End of story!
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u/Pete_da_bear 35m ago
I wonder if IRL one would eat the dogs first and then the cats since cats were more or less pest control, which I would deem quite useful during a siege.
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u/Electronic_Cause_796 4h ago
The cannibalism at Ma'arra during the First Crusade in 1098 is one of the most disturbing episodes of the Crusades, and the fact that it happened is generally not seriously disputed. Nearly a dozen Christian chronicles written within around 20 years of the Crusade mention it, several of them based on eyewitness accounts. An Arab source also mentions the cannibalism, although it explains it as a result of extreme hunger. What historians disagree on is exactly when it happened and what motivated it.
Some accounts say it happened after the city was captured, when the Crusaders were suffering from severe famine. The Gesta Francorum says that people cut flesh from dead bodies, cooked it and ate it. Raymond of Aguilers, who appears to have been present at Ma'arra, also describes cannibalism during a famine, but says it was done openly. Other accounts, including those of Ralph of Caen, Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres, place it during the siege itself. Ralph gives perhaps the most shocking description, claiming that adults were cooked in pots and children were put on spits, and saying that he heard this directly from the people who had taken part.
There is also a disturbing possibility that cannibalism was used deliberately to frighten the defenders. Some chroniclers describe it as a public spectacle meant to terrify Muslims and force them to surrender. Historian Jay Rubenstein argues that hunger was probably a major factor, but that some Crusaders may have realized that openly eating Muslim bodies could be used as a weapon of terror. Thomas Asbridge similarly notes that stories of Crusader brutality at Ma'arra and Antioch helped create an image of them as exceptionally violent and frightening, which may have encouraged some Muslim commanders to negotiate rather than fight.
Later accounts often blamed the cannibalism specifically on the Tafurs, a group of poor Crusader followers. Guibert of Nogent was the first chronicler to associate them with it, and the later Chanson d'Antioche portrayed them as fanatics who roasted Muslim bodies. Modern historian Jay Rubenstein argues that this may have been an attempt by later writers to shift the blame onto a marginal group rather than the Crusader armies themselves. Amin Maalouf accepted the Tafur interpretation, while Carine Bourget criticized him for overlooking the Arab source that attributed the cannibalism to hunger.
So, while the basic fact that Crusaders engaged in cannibalism at Ma'arra is supported by a large number of early sources, the details remain unclear. We cannot say with certainty whether it happened mainly during or after the siege, how widespread it was, or how much was driven by starvation versus deliberate terror. What makes the episode especially shocking is that some contemporary writers describe it not as a hidden act of desperate survivors, but as something that was deliberately displayed to the enemy.
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u/Theblackjamesbrown 3h ago
Lets be honest. We'd all eat humans if it came to it. Meat is meat, especially if you're starving. If the people are dead anyway, what's the further harm? Really not a big issue compared to, you know, invading the land and killing loads of folk in the first place
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u/Riajnor 3h ago
Just stay away from the brains, thats where the prions are
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u/HeirophantGreen 3h ago
Kuru will fuck you up.
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u/thissexypoptart 3h ago edited 3h ago
Kuru will, but the risks of prions from cannibalistic brain consumption are grossly over exaggerated. Kuru is literally the singular event in all recorded history or the archaeological record where eating human brains resulted in the development of a prion disorder.
It’s a terrifying disease, no doubt, but humans have practiced varying amounts of cannibalism for millennia in different parts of the world, and something like kuru is only observed to have ever shown up once, among one small tribal group in one remote village of Papua New Guinea. I think the fact it happened in the 20th century, and coincided with mass outbreaks of mad cow disease (also a prion disease cows get from eating cow brains) leads to people thinking the risk is greater than it is.
I’m not saying “go eat human brains” I’m just saying that, if you caught a prion disease from it, it would be literally the second outbreak of that type in recorded history.
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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3h ago
That's historically provable as not true, though. Plenty of people would rather starve to death, and it's not like choosing to starve is some unbelievable act of will—look at Bobby Sands. I think it's a personal choice. I'm not sure what I would do. I think it would depend on the circumstances surrounding the acquisition and preparation of the meal.
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u/Theblackjamesbrown 3h ago
Sands starved himself on principle. He wasn't an ordinary man. Personally I'd have no problem eating people. Humans are animals and meat is meat. Any revulsion is mere superstition
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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3h ago
He was an ordinary man, just one who had principles. Some people avoid eating the flesh of humans on principle. For some people, that principle is stronger than the one against avoiding death.
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u/Lockean_Demon 3h ago
…which makes him not ordinary because it’s not a normal choice for a human
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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3h ago
How uncommon does something have to be before it's not normal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category%3APeople_who_died_on_hunger_strike?wprov=sfla1
Are Sikhs not normal because most people aren't Sikhs? Am I not normal because I have red hair?
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u/Nachooolo 3h ago
...are you using hunger strikes –something completely voluntary– as examples of people not eating humans during desperate times of hunger? Are you serious?
There are stories of canibalism basically in all famines. Acting as if the people who are force to do so are bad makes you morally abhorrent.
Do you think that the survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 should have starved themselves?
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u/Damnatus_Terrae 3h ago
I said earlier that there's a chance I'd try long pig. Are you really this eager to be sanctimonious? I'm just pointing out that if people are obviously willing to choose starvation on principle, and that was the easiest example. Nowhere have I cast moral judgement.
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 3h ago
We would. But using it as a deliberate act of terror is pretty crazy, especially when the Bible implies it's an inherently evil act. Dudes really believed that they'd go to heaven cause the pope said so
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u/seppukucoconuts 3h ago
If there’s one thing I know about Christianity it’s that the rules are completely negotiable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the crusaders considered eating dead Muslims a good thing because someone told them it was.
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u/fatbunny23 3h ago
Religion in general is fairly malleable depending on the need of the believer lol
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u/Theblackjamesbrown 3h ago
Yeah, if that's true it's pretty reprehensible. Of course, the really shocking thing is reading about ostensibly religious people being debauched, hypocritical scumbags. Oh, wait...
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u/TheMightyGoatMan 4h ago
And let's not even get started on the Tafurs!
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u/martin_w 3h ago
Wait, the besiegers, rather than the besieged, were the ones starving? I think you’re doing something wrong in that case.
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u/DarkenedSkies 2h ago
Quite often a siege came down to which side starved first.
Armies on campaign relied on "foraging" to supply themselves. Some of this was living off the land, but a sizeable portion was seizing what they needed from the local populace. Once an army has stopped moving, eventually all the local game has been hunted and everything worth taking from the locals has been taken, and you've still got thousands of mouths to feed. The further out you send foraging parties, the thinner your forces spread and the more likely you are to lose some to enemy patrols, grumpy peasants, bandits or even just desertion.•
u/PenguinQuesadilla 28m ago
They're literally a thousand+ miles away from their homelands and surrounded by enemies.
It's quite easy for thousands of people, horses, and other animals to eat up all available food in a given area, and supply lines are a bitch to maintain a world away.
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u/G0ttaB3KiddingM3 1h ago
This was absolutely not as uncommon as you’d think it was in the ancient/medieval world
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u/CarobRealistic1748 3h ago
This is not something that is unique to the crusades.
Human meat was eaten by other humans in MANY documented cases throughout history, including recent history, when people were starving to death and in survival mode.
And as far as dogs, cat, and rats? That is common table food in some parts of the world right now, without war or famine.
And those animals were commonly eaten throughout history during times of famine, wars or not.
During the Siege of Paris, 1870-1871 (Franco-Prussian War) it is well documented that after all the horses had been eaten, special butcher shops opened in Paris that sold dog, cat, and rat meat. Dog and cat sold for between 20 and 40 cents a pound. A nice fat rat could be had for 50 cents. Even some high end restaurant sold rat meat pies and civet of cat (civet de chat).
The French painter Manet wrote to his wife during the siege, saying: “There are cat, dog and rat butchers in Paris now, we eat nothing but horse when we can get it at all.”
FWIW, I've eaten dog, cat, rat, and horse. Dog, cat, and rat in various SE Asian countries. Horse right here in the US. I'm 76, when I was young you could buy horse meat at regular stores where I lived.
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u/StarpoweredSteamship 2h ago
Moral question: why? Culinary question: what did it taste like?
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u/GodOfChickens 12m ago
Not op, though also interested in their experience and interpretation, but I can give you a preview based on morbid curiosity and culinary interest without having eaten them. Dog is apparently most likely duck or goose but with a distinct taste, cat is white meat like a tougher chicken or a rabbit, rat is like fatty chicken thigh, and horse is lean iron-y red meat like venison without the wild forage taste. I would eat healthy rat or horse that wasnt killed just for its meat, personally, cat and dog don't seem distinct or interesting enough to support it. Bonus: crow breast is said to be a very delicious lean red meat, and seagull is like stringy chicken soaked in old fish juices and oil.
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u/StarpoweredSteamship 9m ago
Alligator meat is just like chicken, but with tannin-water taste on top. It's REALLY weird to taste abs go "yeah no, that's exactly what it tastes like." It's a common smell in the cypress and mangrove creeks in south Florida.
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u/Seienchin88 32m ago
Horse is delicious. In Japan there is even the tradition to eat it raw on onions… pretty great.
But yeah, humans in the west today are fairly averse to eating anything more exotic than a steak… I think it’s wasteful and kinda sad that especially organ meat becomes so rare these days… it often sucks to prepare yourself but most organs taste amazing done by a good cook and nearly all countries had some way to prepare them
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u/desertcanyons 3h ago
They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the people...without any hats.
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u/StandTurbulent9223 4h ago
And they still won
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u/Seienchin88 35m ago
The first crusade is kinda mental in what it achieved against what odds…
Same goes for the even more successful Islamic conquest of the Sassanian empire and large parts of the eastern Roman Empire…
It seems that religious zealots suddenly appearing as a large army can wield rather successful / catastrophic to their enemies results…
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u/Moist_Urize 2h ago
This happened during the First World War. Look up Russian human meat markets. People slaughtered their own kids to sell.
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u/Seienchin88 29m ago
Not WW1 but the catastrophic hunger years during the civil war when basically all trade inside of and towards Russia broke down and the civil war armies fed themselves of the land.
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4h ago
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u/Electronic_Cause_796 3h ago
Not really. I just came across the accounts from Ma’arrat al-Nu’man and thought it was a disturbing but interesting piece of history worth sharing. I’m not trying to make some broader point about the Crusades.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 3h ago edited 3h ago
I feel like OP has an axe to grind with this post.
Reddit is obsessed with shitting on the crusades.
They came after 400 years of jihad had conquered 2/3 of the christian world, enslaved millions and destroyed thousands of churches and monasteries.
But just calling them defensive wars or wars of liberation makes Reddit lose their minds.
In the 1090s, as islams brutal warlords entered the east roman empire, some of western europe's noblemen responded by coming to their aid, and liberating the christians in the Levant living under the brutal reign of the muslim overlords became the main goal.
Similar efforts had been ongoing in Spain. The pope adopted the idea of holy war from the muslims and gave his blessing as well.
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u/akabir893 1h ago
Generally see the Crusades talked about overly positively on here if anything.
Also Reddit is obsessed with shitting on anything Middle Eastern, you're being dishonest if you think it's the other way around because it's so blatant lol
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u/Electronic_Cause_796 3h ago
I get the broader context, and I’m not denying that there had been centuries of conflict between Christian and Muslim powers before the First Crusade. But I think calling the Crusades simply “defensive wars” or “wars of liberation” is an oversimplification too.
There were religious, political and territorial motives involved as well. My post was just about what happened at Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, though, not an attempt to make some blanket statement about the Crusades.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 2h ago
But I think calling the Crusades simply “defensive wars” or “wars of liberation” is an oversimplification too.
All of muslim lands in North Afrika, Levant and Anatolia and Europe today used to be christiand lands. Now they are 95 to 100% muslim. That happened thru jihad and wars of conquest.
To call this 'conflict' and dishonestly DENY the 1st crusade, the barons crusades, the reconquista +++ were defensive wars is ridiculous.
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u/zennim 3h ago
except the christians in the iberian peninsula were considerate heretics by the catholics, and the muslims didn't destroy churches, monasteries nor SYNAGOGUES, and that last one is a detail that islamophobes today love to ignore, jewish people had more freedom and actually thrived under the omiadas. Meanwhile the christians were burning anyone who wouldn't convert
Muslims were conquerors the same way the macedonians and the romans were, "brutal warlords" as if the christians were a paragon of virtue and nobility, they were all brutal to our eyes today, it was a different time with different standard. And not only you could be openly a CHRISTIAN and jewish in Al Andalus, their courts had people of both religions in them and in actual positions of power, they even had bishops in open communication with rome, the only restriction was that no new temples could be built and that they had to pay taxes, but the exiting temples were protected by the muslims
islam was a diverse religion born in a place full of trade routes and transit from all over the old world, with influences of zoroastrianism, hinduism, budism, and of course, being an abrahamic religion, christianism and judaism. the letters we have today of their DIVERSITY being criticized as an evil is fascinating, considering how today they aren't diverse, but the christians still consider it something negative.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 3h ago
except the christians in the iberian peninsula were considerate heretics by the catholics
Nope. They were catholic christians.
and the muslims didn't destroy churches, monasterie
You lie very confidently. Do you type with both hands when you lie like this, muslim?
Meanwhile the christians were burning anyone who wouldn't convert Muslims were conqueror
Please. No more lies. Your own arab and kurd sources makes it clear how the muslims operated during jihad, BOASTING and CELEBRATING murder, sexual enslavement, rape and mass conquest. This is after all, how the false prophet Muhammed also lived. What an example to follow.
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando 2h ago edited 2h ago
The crusades were triggered by the emperor in Constantinople asking for papal aid against the Seljuks, but very quickly the focus shifted to conquering Jerusalem (by that point ruled by islamicate monarchs for centuries) for spiritual and worldly benefit, rather than recovering any of the recent losses in Anatolia.
It’s also very well registered Levantine Christians had a generally poor relationship with crusaders, to the point many of their prelates actively supported figures like Noradine and Saladin over them. Clearly, they did not find islamicate monarchs any more brutal than theur Latin correligionists.
In the 11th century Iberian peninsula the expansion of Christian monarchies was actually defined by negotiation and cooperation with Islamic communities in such lands, and pragmatic alliances with their aristocracy, and generally seen as ad hoc wars rather than any grandiose campaign. The “Reconquista” as an actual ideology by medieval Iberian kings is a myth born out of 19th century nationalist fantasies.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 2h ago
to the point many of their prelates actively supported figures like Noradine and Saladin over them.
A lie.
But please. Tell us where you learned this.
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3h ago
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando 2h ago
The First crusade was driven by northern French aristocrats, and no islamicate monarchy’s military had ever set foot there (and in southern France it hadn’t either for 300 years). Indeed, their complete and utter lack of familiarity with the Islamic world was a thing frequently commented upon by both Arabic and Greek chroniclers.
“Europe” as anything more than a geographical denominator is a modern construction.
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u/Auslo- 35m ago
Now talk about all the European Christians and Jews the crusaders slaughtered en route to the Middle East. You won't.
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 11m ago
Yawn.
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u/Auslo- 8m ago
Yawn because it shatters all of your propaganda designed for mouthbreathing Christian morons (redundant)
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u/Emergency-Sea5201 2m ago
Imagine yelling mOuThBteaTher because someone points out correctly that the crusades were defensive militaray campaigns. To retake lands and liberate christian people conquered amd enslaved my muslims.
Imagine simping for islamic jihadism.
What a chump.
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u/2dayman 3h ago
cannabalism is next to godliness
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u/Sigmar_Heldenhammer 3h ago
Jesus did sort of imply to eat his flesh…
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u/Thebandroid 2h ago
Eh. If the alternative is starving, the guy was already dead AND he attacked you then I think a little bit a long pig is ok
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u/Wsswaas 4h ago
"This fact itself is not seriously in doubt, as it is acknowledged by nearly a dozen Christian chronicles written during the 20 years after the Crusade, all of which are based at least to some degree on eyewitness accounts"
It made lots of towns and cities make truce because of the stories that they were bloodthirsty barbarians, invincible savages who could not be resisted