History
Hip, Hip Hooray …
When Pope Urban urged Holy war he spoke in these words …
“O race of Franks! Race beloved and chosen of God… From the confines of Jerusalem and from Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth that an accursed race, wholly alienated from God, has violently invaded the lands of these Christians and has depopulated them by pillage and fire… Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.”
In his call to war, Urban held out the promise that all crusaders’ debts would be suspended (or cancelled, if owed to Jews) and that the Church would take care of lords’ estates while they were away fighting. The pope invited robbers to turn soldier, plundering abroad instead of in their own lands. He urged “those who have formerly been mercenaries at low wages” to reap eternal rewards by fighting in Palestine, and promised that the sins of crusading soldiers would be wiped out “by the power of God vested in me.”
His strongest enticement was the promise of plunder and rapine: a new territory was being presented to be carved up, to the glory of god.
Along the road to Palestine, through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary and the Balkans, the crusader mob burned Jews alive in their houses and temples, forced them to baptism at swordpoint, raped and committed other atrocities against young and old. In Prague alone they murdered several thousands Jews. [Poliakov I, 42-45] They did their blood work to a fearsome cry: Hep! Hep! This shout has a clerical origin, abbreviating the Latin phrase: Hierosalyma est perdita, “Jerusalem is lost.” It survived as a pogrom chant into the 20th century.
The Crusaders battle cry of Hep, Hep, was added to as they moved through Hungary. In Hungary they saw executioners taking off the heads of unfortunates, by having the victims kneeling, hands tied behind their backs with head up.
So when the sword came horizontally from behind, the heads would pop up in the air leaving a geyser of blood to leap momentarily into the air.
The executioner dispatched his victim with a cry of “To Paradise” which sounded like ‘Hooraa’.
When Jerusalem finally fell to the Christian armies. The crusaders slaughtered the city’s inhabitants: Muslims, Jews and Christians, men, women and children. The Franks’ own chroniclers admitted to killing 10,000, the mounted knights splattered in blood up to their hips. One wrote, “We slaughtered without regard for age or sex.” [Gontard, 250] Muslim sources wrote that the crusaders killed 100,000 people. Their violence shocked the Muslims, who had peaceably allowed Christian pilgrims to visit Palestine for several centuries.
And to this day, we god loving, church going, hypocrites, celebrate happy times, by crying “Hip, Hip Hooray” and throwing our hats into the air to simulate heads flying into the air.
Yet, we still don’t seem to understand how Muslims might find us hateful? Or why Osama Bin Ladel calls our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Crusaders? Or why some people find having a religious belief is some sort of delusional fantasy?
Finally, from Palestinian poet and eyewitness Mosaffer Allah Werdis, a survivor of the 1120s equivalent of our 9/11.
“We have mingled our blood and our tears
None of us remains who has strength enough to beat off these oppressors;
Oh, that so much blood has to flow,
that so many women were left with nothing save their bare hands to protect their modesty!
Amid the fearful clashing of swords and lances, the faces of the children grow white with horror.”
—Palestinian poet and eyewitness Mosaffer Allah Werdis