# Maarat al-Numan 1098: Crusader Cannibalism Horror

*History & War · Eleanor Hartwell · 2026-08-14*

## TL;DR

In December 1098, after a protracted siege, Crusader forces under leaders like Bohemond of Taranto captured the Syrian town of Maarat al-Numan. The starving invaders resorted to boiling and roasting the bodies of the defeated Muslim defenders, an act documented by both Christian and Muslim chroniclers of the First Crusade.

## Key facts

- The siege of Maarat al-Numan began in late November 1098 and ended with the town's capture in December of the same year.
- The Crusader army, facing severe food shortages, resorted to cannibalism, consuming the bodies of the town's defeated Muslim population.
- Frankish chroniclers, including Albert of Aachen, openly admitted to the cannibalism, describing how adults were boiled and children were roasted.
- Arab historian Ibn al-Athir recorded the events, noting that the Franks boiled the defeated Muslims and that this act became a defining symbol of Crusader cruelty.
- The massacre and cannibalism at Maarat al-Numan became a lasting propaganda tool, used by Muslim leaders to rally resistance against the Crusader states.

## The Maarat al-Numan Siege: A City's Last Stand

In 1098, Maarat al-Numan was a prosperous Syrian town of vineyards, olive groves, and fig orchards, living peacefully under the rule of Ridvan, the emir of Aleppo. That peace was about to shatter as the First Crusade rolled eastward, and the town's name would soon become synonymous with horrors that still echo through history books today.

The townspeople had watched anxiously from a distance of about three days' march as Antioch fell to the Crusaders in early 1098. When the victorious Franks swept through neighboring villages but left Maarat alone, residents knew their turn was coming. Many packed what they could carry and fled to the relative safety of larger cities like Aleppo, Homs, and Hama. Those who stayed, whether by choice or necessity, prepared for the worst.

By mid-November, thousands of Crusader cavalry appeared on the horizon and encircled the town. Maarat had no professional army, only a city militia. Several hundred young men with no military experience whatsoever grabbed whatever weapons they could find and joined the defense. Against heavily armed knights, these makeshift soldiers held the walls for two weeks, a stubborn resistance that surprised everyone.

The Maarat al-Numan siege broke on 11 December 1098. The town's elders approached Bohemond, the new lord of Antioch and one of the four principal commanders of the First Crusade, to negotiate surrender terms. Bohemond gave his word that the residents' lives would be spared if they stopped fighting and withdrew from certain areas. The Franks, as they so often did during the crusades, broke that promise the very next morning.

## Bohemond's Broken Promise and the Massacre

Bohemond of Antioch gave his word that Maarat al-Numan's residents would live if they stopped fighting. The very next morning, on 12 December 1098, Crusader forces poured into the city and slaughtered the people anyway. The promise lasted barely a day, and the betrayal became one of the most infamous moments of the entire First Crusade.

The surrender negotiations happened on 11 December 1098, after two weeks of desperate resistance by Maarra's citizens. The city had no professional army, only a town militia made up of local men, including a few hundred young volunteers with no military experience at all. They had held off heavily armed knights for fourteen days, an extraordinary feat for untrained defenders. But eventually their strength gave out, and the city's elders approached Bohemond, the newly installed ruler of Antioch and one of the four principal commanders of the First Crusade, to discuss terms.

Bohemond promised that if the townspeople ceased fighting and withdrew from certain areas, their lives would be spared. According to the twelfth-century chronicler Ibn al-Athir, the Crusaders entered the city at dawn on 12 December and carried out a massacre. The horror of what followed was not just the number of dead, though that was staggering. It was what the victors did with the bodies that made Maarra unforgettable.

The Frankish chronicler Raoul de Caen wrote openly about the atrocities: "Our people boiled adult pagans in cauldrons, impaled children on spits, and roasted and ate them." These were not rumors spread by enemies. They came from a Christian knight who was present at the siege and recorded what his fellow Crusaders did without shame or apology.

The cannibalism was not a single desperate act. The Tafurs, a fanatical band of Crusaders, openly proclaimed their desire to eat Muslim flesh and gathered around fires in the countryside to consume their victims. Some chroniclers later claimed the army was driven to such extremes by famine. A letter reportedly sent by Bohemond to the Pope the following year said the army "fell into a terrible hunger at Maarra, and necessity forced them to commit the monstrous act of eating the corpses of Muslims." Whether that letter actually existed remains unclear, and some historians doubt its authenticity. But the eyewitness accounts of what happened in the city are consistent and detailed.

Albert of Aix, a chronicler who wrote about the crusade, reported that the Franks ate not only slain Muslims but also dogs without disgust. Contrary to what some later retellings suggest, Albert did not participate in the siege himself. He composed his history decades afterward, relying on the accounts of others. Still, his description of the famine and the consumption of animals and corpses matches what other sources recorded.

The savagery at Maarra seared itself into Arab memory. The image of the Franks as people who ate human flesh became a recurring theme in Arab epic poetry for generations. The Maarra massacre, as the story goes, deepened the rift between Arabs and Franks in ways that shaped the entire course of the Crusades, though historians debate how directly it caused later cities to surrender without a fight. What is certain is that the name Maarat al-Numan siege became synonymous with betrayal and brutality, a warning of what awaited any city that trusted a Crusader's word.

## Cannibalism at Maarat: The Chroniclers' Testimony

The most chilling record of the Maarat al-Numan siege comes from a Frankish chronicler who was there. Raoul de Caen, writing in his *Gesta Tancredi*, described the scene in words that still stop readers cold: "At Maarra, our men boiled adult infidels in cauldrons, impaled children on spits, and ate them grilled."

Raoul was no enemy propagandist. He rode with the crusaders and served under Tancred, one of the First Crusade's most celebrated knights. His account, composed within a few years of the events, does not try to hide what happened. It simply reports it, as if roasting a child on a spit were an ordinary part of siege warfare.

Another Frankish voice, Albert of Aix, added a detail that somehow makes the scene even more gruesome. Albert, who compiled his chronicle decades after the fact from the accounts of returning crusaders rather than participating himself, wrote that the men ate not only slain Muslims but also dogs, and did so without any sign of disgust. The image of a crusader chewing on a dead dog, no longer caring what flesh filled his belly, paints a picture of complete moral collapse.

The most disturbing testimony concerns the Tafurs, a fanatical band within the crusader army. According to the chroniclers, these men made no effort to hide their appetite. They openly proclaimed their desire to eat Muslim flesh and scattered across the countryside shouting about it. At night, witnesses said, they gathered around fires, cutting apart the bodies of those they had killed and cooking them over the flames.

What makes these accounts so hard to dismiss is that they come from both sides. Arab writers like Ibn al-Athir recorded the same horrors from the perspective of the victims. The anonymous poet of Maarat, whose city was destroyed in the siege, cried out in anguish: "This is a meadow where wild animals roam, or is it my home, the place where I was born? I do not know!"

The cannibalism at Maarat was not a secret crime committed in the dark. It was done openly, brazenly, and in some cases with something like pride. The Tafurs boasted of their deeds. The chroniclers wrote them down without apology. And the people of Syria, who watched their neighbors being eaten, would carry that image for generations.

## Why Did They Eat Human Flesh? Starvation or Fanaticism?

The cannibalism at the Maarat al-Numan siege was not a single desperate act but a sustained horror that blended genuine starvation with something far more disturbing. Hunger explains why starving soldiers might consume corpses, but it does not explain the Tafurs, the fanatical bands who openly boasted about eating Muslim flesh and gathered around evening fires to roast their victims. The truth is that both forces were at work, and disentangling them requires looking at who was eating, and how they spoke about it.

Bohemond, the Norman prince who had taken Antioch earlier in 1098 and now led the assault on Maarat al-Numan, reportedly sent a letter to the Pope the following year. According to that account, the army fell into a terrible famine and necessity forced them to commit the monstrous act of eating Muslim corpses. No such letter survives today in any reliable archive, so historians treat it as a contested detail rather than established fact. What is not contested is that the winter of 1098 was called "ill-fated" by those who lived through it, and the atrocities did not stop with the fall of the city on 11 December 1098.

The Frankish chronicler Raoul de Caen, who was present at the siege, wrote openly about what his comrades did. His words are blunt: "At Maarra, our people boiled adult pagans in cauldrons, impaled children on spits, and roasted and ate them." That is not the language of a man trying to hide anything. It is a confession, written without shame, and it matches what local poets and oral traditions in the region described for generations afterward.

The Tafurs complicate any simple story of starvation. These were not regular soldiers driven mad by hunger. They were zealots, described in later medieval chronicles as a fanatical faction who made a point of their cannibalism. Witnesses reported seeing them scatter across the countryside shouting that they wanted to eat Muslim flesh, then gather at night around fires where they cut apart and consumed the people they had killed. That is ritualistic behavior, not survival behavior. A man eating a corpse because he is starving does not announce it to the world. The Tafurs did exactly that, and their boasting suggests something beyond biological need.

One chronicler often cited in this context is Albert of Aix, who supposedly wrote that the crusaders ate not only slain Muslims but also dogs without any disgust. The problem is that Albert never participated in the siege of Maarat al-Numan. He composed his chronicle decades later, working from the accounts of others who had been there. So while his description may reflect real events, it is secondhand testimony, not eyewitness reporting, and treating it as direct evidence would be a mistake.

What remains clear is that the cannibalism at Maarat al-Numan was not a single incident that ended when the city fell. It continued through that brutal winter, and it left a mark on how the Arab world understood the Franks for centuries. Whether the motivation was empty bellies or burning faith, the result was the same: a horror that no one who witnessed it would ever forget.

## The Legacy: Franks as Man-Eaters in Arab Memory

The image of the Frankish crusader as a flesh-eating monster took root in Arab collective memory after December 1098, and it would shape how the Islamic world responded to the Crusades for generations. What happened at Maarat al-Numan siege was not just a massacre. It became a defining symbol of what the invaders were capable of, a story told around fires and passed down through oral tradition.

The horror traveled faster than any army could. Local poets and storytellers spread accounts of what the Franks had done, and the details were so vivid, so visceral, that they lodged themselves deep in the cultural imagination. The Frankish chronicler Raoul de Caen had written openly about boiling adult Muslims in cauldrons and roasting children on spits, and while his words were meant for Latin readers, the reality of those acts was witnessed by Syrians who would never forget them. According to the original account, this created a deep rift between Arabs and Franks that reportedly lasted for centuries, though historians debate how direct that causal link truly was.

What is clearer is the practical effect on the ground. As the Crusader advance continued toward Jerusalem, many cities chose surrender over resistance. The lesson of Maarat al-Numan siege was simple: fight, and you might be eaten. So towns opened their gates. Syrian emirs, preoccupied with their own internal rivalries, sent envoys loaded with gifts to the invaders, hoping to buy goodwill and avoid sharing Maarra's fate. The strategy was humiliating, but it was also rational. Better to lose face than to lose your life in a cooking pot.

In Arab epic literature, the Franks became permanent villains, depicted as man-eaters in story after story. The image was not subtle, and it did not need to be. It captured something real about the terror that the First Crusade had unleashed, a terror that no amount of diplomatic gifts could fully erase.


## Frequently asked questions

**What happened at Maarat al-Numan in 1098?**

The Maarat al-Numan siege ended on 11 December 1098 when Crusader forces broke through the city's defenses in what is now Syria. After Bohemond, the lord of Antioch, promised safety to the inhabitants, his forces entered the city at dawn on 12 December and carried out a massacre. According to the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir, the killing was extensive, and later accounts describe acts of cannibalism that made this siege infamous among the atrocities of the First Crusade.

**Why did Crusaders resort to cannibalism at Maarat al-Numan?**

Chroniclers offer two explanations for the cannibalism at Maarat al-Numan. The first is famine: the Crusader army had been besieging the city for weeks and reportedly ran desperately short of food. The second is fanaticism: a group known as the Tafurs, described as zealots within the Crusader ranks, openly proclaimed their desire to eat Muslim flesh and gathered around fires in the evenings to consume their victims. Both causes appear in medieval accounts of the siege.

**Who was Bohemond?**

Bohemond was the lord of Antioch and one of the four main commanders of the First Crusade, which ran from 1096 to 1099. At Maarat al-Numan in December 1098, he negotiated the city's surrender by promising to spare the lives of its inhabitants. The next day, his forces broke that promise and entered the city to slaughter the population. His role in this betrayal made him a central figure in the siege's grim legacy.

**How did Arab chroniclers like Ibn al-Athir describe the events?**

Ibn al-Athir, a prominent Arab historian writing in the 12th and 13th centuries, recorded that the massacre at Maarat al-Numan occurred on 12 December 1098. His account describes Crusader forces entering the city at dawn and killing its inhabitants after the surrender agreement was violated. His version of events became one of the most cited Arabic sources for what happened during the Maarat al-Numan siege.

**Did Crusaders eat children at Maarat al-Numan?**

According to the Frankish chronicler Raoul de Caen, yes. In his account of the First Crusade, he wrote that Crusaders boiled adult Muslims in cauldrons, impaled children on spits, and roasted and ate them. Raoul de Caen was a contemporary writer who served under Tancred, one of the Crusade's leaders, so his testimony carries weight even though the events he describes are horrifying to modern readers.

**What impact did the Maarat al-Numan siege have?**

According to the original account, the cannibalism at Maarat al-Numan created a lasting rift between Arabs and Franks that persisted for centuries. The story also claims that many cities subsequently surrendered without resistance during the Crusader advance, and that Syrian emirs sent gifts and envoys to assure the invaders of their goodwill. However, this specific causal link between the massacre and later surrenders is contested by historians, who note that other factors also shaped these decisions.

Canonical: https://curio.madeda.com/maarat-al-numan-1098-crusader-cannibalism-horror/