ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the notion of collective memory, memorialization and the Crusades. Through the medium of the Hebrew crusade chronicles, especially those of Shelomo bar Shimshon and Ephraim of Bonn, it examines Jewish memories of crusading and in particular the theme of papal protection in order to explore how Jewish communities remembered the impact of Christian violence. Jewish writers were anxious to ensure the safety of their communities in Western Europe and grateful for statements of papal protection. They fully acknowledged that popes had always played and would continue to play an important role in safeguarding their well-being and determining their future. Yet although contemporary and later Jewish writers might value papal protection more highly than that of monarchs, emperors or clergy, as we shall see, they also recognized that its limits were carefully circumscribed.
