ok guys. stick out your hands, it's time for your daily dose of grain of salt. one: the crusades are a very tough time to understand objectively. two: both sides have conflicting accounts. three: most histories of the crusades were written well after the respective crusade. four: one of the quotes on the wiki article is said to have been written nine years after the fact. five: political mudslinging could be the explanation just as well as hyperbole. remember that there were not two warring factions, but chieftains loosely allied under a common name that warred against each other as much as against the other team. six: ... i mean, should we be shocked somebody is accused of eating babies?
it could be a dumbest protest signs XIth century edition, if it was not classic chronicle hyperbole. i've seen this before, and my teachers warned me about this. take from it that times were grim. look at albert of aix's quote: it was more moraly ok to eat a saracen than a dog according to christians. (keep in mind that with few exceptions, chroniclers were ecclesiarchs one way or another.) so yeah, at best, objectively we can say that the crusaders went hungry. nothing more. just because it's written down it's not to be taken as sacrosanct fact.
(for once that my degree gets a use around here...)
@ravy and dave, i'm partial to oven-roasted in mustard, myself.
